ixvi Introduction.

was under consideration, except when a motion was made in the Lower House
that an alteration be made in the oath to be taken by Papists and non-jurors
provided in the bill, almost all the Proprietary delegates voted to do away with
these restrictive oaths (pp. 111.112). It is also to be noted that the 1762
Supply bill, like its predecessors, imposed a double land tax on all Roman
Catholics (pp. 553, 559, 561). There is also good reason to believe that a bill, no
copy of which has been preserved, with the innocuous title "an act for the se-
curity of the public records and papers", passed by the Lower House at the 1762
session, but allowed to die in the Upper House, was an anti-Catholic measure
(pp. 154, 38), because at the 1763 session the title of a bill openly directed
against Catholic clerks in public offices, recited that its purpose was "for the
better securing of the public records" (pp. 320, 362, 374, 389-390).

The injustices suffered by alien, or unnaturalized landholders, especially if
they were Roman Catholics, have already been discussed by the editor in a
preceding volume of the Archives. It will be recalled that at the March-April,
1761, session, the Upper House had thought to ameliorate the plight of
Catholic landholders by passing a naturalization bill to quiet the titles of alien
landholders, Protestant and Catholic, by granting naturalization to those who
took the prescribed oaths of abjuration and the declaration of fidelity to the
Protestant Hanoverian line. But the bill was amended in the Lower House
to apply only to Protestant landholders. The Upper House refused to accept
this amendment, and the bill failed of passage (Arch. Md. LVI; ixiii-lxvi).
At the 1763 session a bill was passed in the Lower House "for the security
of purchasers and others being Protestant claiming by or from Aliens". The
title indicates that it discriminated against Catholics, but as no copy of it is
now known to exist, the extent of this discrimination can only be guessed at.
It was rejected by the Upper House which did not state its reasons for so
doing (pp. 304, 305, 354, 248, 259, 375).

Another Lower House bill, probably sponsored by Colonel Edward Tilgh-
man, "to oblige persons who officiate as clerks or writers in the public offices
to take the oaths to the government, and for the better securing of the public
records", was apparently aimed at Roman Catholics serving as clerks in these
offices. The laws of both Maryland and Great Britain forbade Catholics from
holding public office, but this bill was obviously aimed to get rid of suspected
Catholics in clerical positions, as no conscientious Catholic would be willing
to take oaths which denied the spiritual authority of the Pope and belief in
the transubstantiation of the sacrament. Again without assigning any reason
for so doing, the Upper House promptly rejected this bill (pp. 320, 362, 374,
389-390). Another anti-Catholic bill, also sponsored by Colonel Tilghman,
met the same fate in the Upper House as did his bill directed against clerks
in public offices suspected of Catholicism. This was the Lower House bill,
passed November 19, 1763, "for preventing the importation of German and
French papists and popish priests and Jesuits into this Province by way of
Pennsylvania or .... Delaware". This bill was also rejected by the Upper
House without explanation, although there may have been other features of
the bill directed at the prerogative of the Proprietary, which played a part in
its rejection (pp. 321, 370, 382, 389).