The convention in England seconded this proceeding by formally taking the government out of lord Baltimore's hands, and affairs were managed under some kind of temporary administration until the year 1692, when a governor and council were appointed by the king, and all subordinate officers, even those concerned in the affairs of land, were commissioned by the same authority. The adherents of the proprietary were ousted, and made, by means of a religious test, which they could not honestly take, incapable of holding employments in the new administration. So far as concerned affairs of government, lord Baltimore submitted without resistance; but, in what related to land transactions, he struggled hard to maintain his rights, and was assisted in this object, with great zeal and intelligence, by his (b) agents and other officers in Maryland. Various questions and disputes took place concerning the appointment of surveyors; the state of the land office and records; the pecuniary rights of the proprietary, the validity of his conditions of plantation, and in short the nature and extent of the powers still attached to him as absolute lord and owner of the soil: for, in this respect the rights conveyed by the charter had never been expressly abridged. The king's secretary of the province, Sir Thomas Lawrence, claimed the right of issuing land warrants, and more especially those of resurvey, for which he required and received fees, while the agent of the proprietary refused to issue patents without the same fees were paid to the officers under his direction. The secretary maintaining his point, lord Baltimore raised his conditions of plantation. The government remonstrated against this procedure, as an hardship on the people, and an impediment to the growth of the colony. The proprietary, through his agent, offered to rescind his new conditions, if the affairs and emoluments of the land-office were left to his officers. Many propositions and proceedings took place, as well in the legislature as in the executive branch of the government, upon these subjects. The custody of the land records was an object of particular solicitude; the agent strenuously demanding them, as necessary to the discharge of his duties as chief officer in land affairs; and the assembly insisting that they should remain in the secretary's office for the inspection of the people, who were interested in them. Appeals were made to the board of trade and plantations, and to the crown itself: orders were, in consequence passed, which composed in some degree these discordances, and land affairs went on, in a way equivocal and unsettled indeed, but so     (b) Henry Darnall, Esq. already the proprietary's chief agent, was commissioned anew in 1695, with powers similar to those of the late land council, and the office was subsequently filled by Charles Carroll, Esq. with authorities still more extensive.