x Letter of Transmittal.

be held in New York in October to protest against the Stamp Act, the members
of the Council advised the Governor to call the Assembly together at once,
telling him that if he did not do so, the members of the Lower House would
meet together informally and appoint delegates to attend the Stamp Act
Congress. The Assembly was called together on September 23, 1765. The
Lower House appointed as delegates three of its members, all leaders of the
Popular party, Colonel Edward Tilghman of Queen Anne's County, William
Murdock of Prince George's County, and Thomas Ringgold of Kent County.
Resolutions were passed not only against the act, as taxation without represen-
tation by the colonies in the Parliament which imposed the tax, but as contrary
to the charter of Maryland granted by Charles I to Cecilius Calvert, second
Lord Baltimore, exempting the inhabitants of the Province from all taxes
except those which their own Assembly might impose upon them. The action
of the Lower House was supported by the Upper House, which joined with
it in making an appropriation of £500 for the expenses of the three "commis-
sioners" to the Congress. The Assembly then took a month's recess until the
delegates returned.

On reassembling, members of both political parties in the Lower House united
in unanimously thanking the three delegates to the Congress for what they
had done on behalf of Maryland and the other colonies, and approved the
appointment by the Maryland delegates of Charles Garth as Agent in London,
to present, on behalf of the Province, the address of remonstrance to the King
against the Stamp Act and the petitions to the House of Lords and to the
House of Commons praying for its repeal, which had been adopted by the
Congress. Thus for the time being the attention of the Lower House was
diverted from its various long-standing political grievances against the Pro-
prietary to the more serious measure of taxation by Parliament. It is not to
be doubted from the evidence available that the Stamp Act was as little liked
by the Proprietary as by the people of Maryland, in his case because of the
fear that it would take so much of the ready money out of the Province that
there would be little left for himself.

Both houses of the Assembly, united for a short time by the threat which
the Stamp Act had directed against all classes in the Province, during the entire
September meeting and the early part of the November-December session,
worked more harmoniously together than they had done for many years. It
was not until after Stamp Act affairs had been disposed of, and the Journal of
Accounts, the measure which carried appropriations for the expenses of gov-
ernment, came before the Assembly, that this truce between the two houses
came to a sudden end. A deadlock between the two houses on this matter had