lii Introduction.

this from the journals alone is not clear. At the same session All Faiths Parish,
which lay in both St. Mary's and Calvert counties, presented a petition, the
nature of which is not disclosed but doubtless had a bearing on the petition
just cited, which was referred by the Upper House to the Lower House where
it likewise was rejected (pp. 232, 327, 352). The whole matter is cleared up
by a reference to the William and Mary Parish petition itself, which has for-
tunately been preserved, and will be found printed in the Appendix, together
with a list of the petitioners (pp. 573.574). The petition states that by a
former act of the Assembly [1744], St. Mary's County was to be re-divided
into four parishes with changes in the dividing lines of the old parishes. Under
this division a portion of All Faith's Parish was to be taken off and added to
William and Mary Parish (Arch. Md., XLII, 606-610). Under the terms of
the Act of 1744 it was provided that the part of All Faith's to be thus annexed
to William and Mary (although it had been cut from All Faith's upon the death
of the Rev. M.^r Lawrence Debutts in 1752) was not to be annexed legally to
William and Mary until the death of the Rev. John Urquhart, rector of All
Faith's. This did not occur until 1764, a year after the date of this petition.
The petitioners declared that as Debutts was dead they therefore now sought
to have that part of All Faith's Parish, since the death of Debutts a part of no
parish, at once annexed to William and Mary. By doing this, William and
Mary would be enabled to collect a poll tax of thirty pounds of tobacco from
those inhabitants who at present paid no clergy tax to either parish. The Upper
House apparently was unwilling to modify in any way the provisions of the
Act of 1744 and make this addition to William and Mary Parish in anticipation
of the death of Urquhart, who was still living.

It is to be noted that at the 1765 session an act was passed to tax the
inhabitants of All Faiths Parish a total of one hundred and twenty thousand
pounds of tobacco, and also to collect an additional thirty pounds per poll
to be paid by extra-parochial inhabitants, who by the death of the late rector
[the Reverend John Urquhart] became united to all Faiths Parish, to be used
for the purchase of one acre of land for the erection of a new church where
the old one stands (Hanson's Laws of Maryland made since MDCCLXHI;
Acts of 1765, chapter v). It was customary when a Parish was divided or when
its bounds were altered by an act of the Assembly, that these changes did not
go into effect until the death of the then existing rectors. The Reverend John
Urquhart had died February 17, 1764, and changes which had been previously
provided for in the act of 1744 were now in effect. At the May-June, 1748,
session another act had been passed relating to the bounds between All Faiths
Parish and King and Queen Parish, adjoining parishes in St. Mary's County,
and providing that upon the death of Reverend Mr. Urquhart the number of
taxable inhabitants in these two parishes be more equitably proportioned
(Arch. Md. XLVI; 123, 125).

St. Andrew's Parish, St. Mary's County, was unable to get favorable action
at the 1763 session upon a petition, the nature of which the record does not
disclose, and upon which action was postponed until the next session (p. 352).
An act was passed at the 1765 session, however, authorizing the imposition