202 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION [1776.

without the former, they can have no property; without the latter,
no security for their lives or liberties.

The parliament of Great Britain has of late claimed an uncon-
trollable right of binding these colonies in all cases whatsoever :
to enforce an unconditional submission to this claim, the legisla-
tive and executive powers of that state have invariably pursued for
these ten years past a steadier system of oppression, by passing
many impolitic, severe and cruel acts for raising a revenue from
the colonists; by depriving them in many cases of the trial by jury;
by altering the chartered constitution of one colony, and the entire
stoppage of the trade of its capital; by cutting off all intercourse
between the colonies; by restraining them from fishing on their
own coasts; by extending the limits of, and erecting an arbitrary
government in the province of Quebec; by confiscating the pro-
perty of the colonists taken on the seas, and compelling the crews
of their vessels, under the pain of death, to act against their native
country and dearest friends; by declaring all seizures, detention,
or destruction of the persons or property of the colonists, to be
legal and just.

A war unjustly commenced hath been prosecuted against the
united colonies with cruelty, outrageous violence, and perfidy;

slaves, savages, and foreign mercenaries have been meanly hired
to rob a people of their property, liberties and lives, a peo-
ple guilty of no other crime than deeming the last of no esti-
mation without the secure enjoyment of the former; their humble
and dutiful petitions for peace, liberty and safety, have been reject-
ed with scorn; secure of and relying on foreign aid, not on his
national forces, the unrelenting monarch of Britain hath at length
avowed, by his answer to the city of London, his determined and
inexorable resolution of reducing these colonies to abject slavery.

Compelled by dire necessity, either to surrender our properties,
liberties and lives, into the hands of a British king and parliament,
or to use such means as will most probably secure to us and our
posterity those invaluable blessings,

We the delegates of Maryland, in convention assembled, do de-
clare, that the king of Great Britain has violated his compact with
this people, and that they owe no allegience to him; we have
therefore thought it just and necessary to empower our deputies in
congress to join with a majority of the united colonies in declaring
them free and independent states, in framing such farther confed-
eration between them, in making foreign alliances, and in adopting
snch other measures as shall be judged necessary for the preserva-
tion of their liberties: provided, the sole and exclusive rights of