ixvi Introduction.

petition says that Lyon connived at the delay Duchart experienced in securing
naturalization, and, knowing that the latter was an alien, had secretly obtained
an escheat warrant for the land and secured a patent on it. The petition closes
with the request that the Governor and Assembly "will in tender Compassion
to this distressed Widow and Seven Children" permit the petitioner to reimburse
William Lyon for what he had paid for the escheat, and order that the land
be offered at public sale to the best bidder, and the money thus obtained be
deposited with the Commissary General for the benefit of the widow and orphans
of Duchart (Appendix, pp. 517-519). The proceedings of the April-May
1757 session show that the Upper House rejected Chamier's petition (Arch.
Md. LV, 10). The Duchart case was doubtless one of those that Dulany had
in mind when he urged the passage of a naturalization law.

A Naturalization bill was introduced in the Upper House at the March-April
1760 session and passed April i (p. 209). The act now passed by the Upper
House, after reciting the injustices of the present laws to unnaturalized aliens
who had acquired land by patent or purchase, as well as to purchasers from
aliens, quieted all past titles and provided that in the future all aliens who shall
take the prescribed oaths of abjuration and subscribe to the declaration of fidelity
under the Act of I George the First establishing the succession of the Crown
in the Protestant and Hanoverian line, shall be the King's subjects of this
Province, and entitled to hold and dispose of land, although not entitled to
sit in the Assembly or occupy any civil office (pp. 309-312). The bill was sent
to the Lower House on April 4, where, by a vote of 25 to 7, the provisions of
the bill to validate the titles of aliens were restricted to Protestant foreigners
and not extended to include even the naturalization of Roman Catholic aliens
already settled in the Province. The test of conformity was the taking of the
Sacrament in some Protestant congregation, the usual oaths (Quakers ex-
cepted), and subscribing to the declaration (pp. 248-250, 254-256, 312-313).
While assenting to certain of the amendments made in the Lower House,
the Upper House refused to agree to the provision excluding Roman Catholics
already in the Province, although it was willing to deny naturalization to
"Romish or Jesuitical Priests". LJpon the refusal of the Lower House to tone
down its amendments the bill was allowed to die (pp. 220, 212-213). By order
of the Lower House the bill with its amendments was ordered entered in its
journal, and was also ordered to be printed in pamphlet form with two other
rejected bills (pp. 257-258, 309-312). This rare pamphlet is fully described
in a note on page 257.

ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE.

The long-discussed question of the establishment of a college in Maryland,
which had last been brought by Governor Sharpe before the Assembly at
the May 1754 session, was again agitated at the April-May 1761 session. On
April 24, 1761, a committee headed by Edward Tilghman was appointed by
the Lower House to consider and report "what funds may be necessary to
be raised for Erecting and Establishing a College within the Province" (p. 461).
This committee reported on May 5 "that the House in the City of Annapolis,