Introduction. lix

the March-April 1760 session that relief from the hardships imposed upon alien
landowners under existing laws be not extended in the proposed new Naturaliza-
tion bill to Roman Catholic aliens (pp. 248-250, 254-256, 312-313, 220). It
may be added that the Upper House, although composed only of Protestants,
opposed all such oppressive measures. Charles Pratt, the King's Attorney-
General, in an opinion given in 1759 to the Proprietary, Frederick, Lord Balti-
more, as to the constitutionality of various provisions included by the Lower
House in its recent Supply bills, declared that the double tax on Roman Catho-
lics was "a Breach of Public Faith and tends to Subvert the very Foundations
of the Maryland constitution", and would only be excused were they guilty of
"Dangerous Practices and Disaffections" (p. 203).

The embezzlement of public funds by Henry Darnall, Naval Officer of
the Patuxent District, who had made away with over £2,000 tobacco export
duties collected by him, was the excuse for an anti-Catholic outbreak in the
Lower House. A member of a very prominent Catholic family of southern
Maryland, Darnall, before becoming Attorney-General of Maryland, had a
few years earlier disclaimed affiliation with the Catholic church, and taken all
the oaths to the Church of England that were required to enable him to hold
public office. The Lower House suspecting his good faith, and as it turned out
later with good reason, had in 1756 demanded his removal from office by
Sharpe. This the latter refused to do on the grounds that there was no evi-
dence that he had not conformed in good faith to the established church (Arch.
Md. LII, xvi-xvii, xxiv). When the Darnall defalcation of over £2,000 export
duties collected by him was revealed at the April-May 1761 session of the
Assembly, the Lower House sought to hold Sharpe responsible because he had
not removed Darnall from the office of Attorney-General at its bidding five
years before. The indignant Governor promptly retorted that the Lower
House had demanded his removal only on the grounds of suspected Catholicism,
and not on grounds of inefficiency or dishonesty, and added that if they suspected
his honesty they were remiss in not so saying at the time, and had thus con-
nived at the embezzlement of a large sum in order that they might have the
opportunity of later throwing the responsibility on him for any questionable
acts which had been, or might be, committed by Darnall subsequently (pp. 484-
486,490-492).

PROVINCIAL AGENT IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The appointment of a provincial agent to represent the people of Maryland
in Great Britain, and more especially before the home government, which has
been discussed in the introduction to a former volume of the Archives (Arch.
Md. LV, 1), came up again at the April, 1759, the March-April 1760, and the
April-May 1761, sessions. Lord Baltimore violently opposed the appointment
of an agent, on the ground that the popular party would use him to misrepre-
sent and discredit the Proprietary government at home. Bills "to raise a Fund
to be applied to the payment of an Agent for the service of the Province"
were introduced in the Lower House and passed at both the 1759 and 1760
sessions, in each case to be immediately rejected in the Upper House. It was