12 MARYLAND MANUAL.

the Catholics eleven or twelve to one, the credulous people
were easily persuaded that a plot was on foot to bring down
a force of hostile Indians, who, joining with the Catholics,
were to make a general massacre of the Protestants. The
terrified people hastily took up arms in various places, and
the leaders of the sedition, headed by John Coode, a man
of infamous character, placed themselves at their head and
seized the government. This done, they wrote to King
William, assuring him that they had acted from motives of
the purest patriotism, and to preserve the Protestants from
destruction, and begging him to take the government into
his own hand.

Accordingly, William, without waiting for a legal inves-
tigation, assumed the government, and in 1692 sent out Sir
Lionel Copley as the first royal governor. The Propri-
etary's property and personal revenues were not confiscated,
but the whole proprietary government was superseded.

One of the first acts of the new government was to make
the Church of England the established church of the
province. Hitherto all worship had been free, and all the
churches had been supported by voluntary contributions,
but now all taxables had to contribute, to the extent of
forty pounds of tobacco per poll, to maintain the establish-
ment. Protestant Dissenters and Quakers were allowed
their separate meeting-houses, if they paid the tax.

During the administration of Francis Nicholson the seat
of government was removed from St. Mary's to Annapolis
(1694) and a beginning was made toward a system of free
schools by the foundation of King William School, at the
latter city.

Charles, the third Lord Baltimore, died in 1715, and his
title and estates went to his eldest son, Benedict Leonard,
who had become a Protestant. He, however, died the same
year, and his Charles, a minor, and also a Protestant,
succeeded. As the charter had never been rescinded, but
only held in abeyance because of the Proprietary's faith,
that reason now no longer existed, and on the petition of
Charles's guardian, the province was restored to him in
1716.

In 1751 Charles, the Proprietary, died, and was succeeded
by his only sou, Frederick, sixth and last Baron of Balti-
more, who sent out Horatio Sharpe as Governor.