Introduction. xix

ber 23, 1765, sworn in as a member of the Council and took his seat in the
Upper House on the second day of the session (Arch. Md. XXXII; 107). The
members of the Upper House who were actually in attendance at this short, six
day session were Tasker, Chamberlaine, Hammond, Lee, Henry, Goldsborough,
Lloyd, Dulany, and Ridout.

Politically there had been little change in the composition of the Lower
House as a result of the recent elections. The old leaders of the anti-Proprie-
tary, country, or popular party, as it was variously called, Edward Tilghman,
William Murdock, Thomas Ringgold, John Hammond, John Hanson, Robert
Lloyd, William Smallwood, and Thomas Johnson, the last now definitely aligned
with this group, were still in complete control. An important addition to this
group was Samuel Chase, who later was to become perhaps the most aggressive
of all the pre-Revolutionary leaders. The poll of votes for the two delegates from
Annapolis showed the following result: Walter Dulany 132 votes, Samuel
Chase 88, and Dr. George Steuart 59—a significant poll, as in this hitherto
stronghold of Proprietary influence, Chase outran, by 19 votes, Steuart, for
many years the wheelhorse of the Proprietary party in the house. The Govern-
ment in these first two 1765 sessions also suffered a serious loss when Walter
Dulany was twice unseated, first at the September session because he had dis-
qualified himself by accepting an office under the Government, and later, at the
November-December session, after reelection, when his second election was de-
clared to be irregular and he was again unseated. Two important additions to
the membership of the Lower House were James Hollyday and Robert Golds-
borough. Both were able lawyers who had received their training in the Temple.
Although they played important parts in the Assembly at this session and there-
after, and their sympathies were doubtless with the popular party, neither of
them at this time seems to have affiliated with the aggressively partisan group.

Among the fifty-eight members of the Lower House who had just been
elected, there were forty-two delegates who had been members of the last
Assembly; four who had served in former assemblies but not in the last ( Samuel
Wilson, Henry Travers, Woolman Gibson, and Nicholas Hyland), and twelve
new members who had never before served in a Maryland legislature. It
may be recalled that at the December, 1758, session Samuel Wilson of the
Proprietary party had, by a party vote, been censured and placed under arrest
by the sergeant-at-arms for a severe verbal attack upon Philip Hammond, a
popular leader of the house (Arch. Md. LVI; liii-lv). He had not been a
member of the Assembly elected in 1761. The new members were Daniel
Wolstenholme of St. Mary's, Young Parran of Calvert, Robert Tyler of
Prince George's, John Hall Jr. and James Heath of Baltimore, William Winder
of Somerset, Philemon LeCompte and Robert Goldsborough of Dorchester,
Henry Hollyday of Talbot, Robert Buchanan of Kent, Fielder Gantt and
James Smith of Frederick and Samuel Chase of Annapolis. Goldsborough,
who had been entered at the Middle Temple, London, in 1752, and had been
called to the English bar in 1756, was a delegate from Dorchester County.
To this group of new members was to be added John Hall of Annapolis, who
took Walter Dulany's place after he was unseated the second time, increasing
the number of new members to thirteen.