626/Maryland Manual

duties were actually performed by the deputies.
The deputies named in the commission were
George Talbot, Thomas Tailler, Colonel Vincent
Lowe, Colonel William Stevens, Colonel William
Burgess, Major Nicholas Sewall, and John
Darnall. Most of them served the entire period
indicated, but there were a few changes.

1688-1689. William Joseph. Named president of the
Council of Deputies in a commission from the
Lord Proprietary.

1689-1690. John Coode. Leader of the Protestant
Associators who seized the government on
August 1, 1689.

1691-1692. Nehemiah Blackiston. Appointed
president of the Committee for the Government
of Maryland when Coode went to England.

1692-1693. Sir Lionel Copley.

1693. Sir Thomas Lawrence. Elected governor after
the death of Copley, but had served only a week
or two when Sir Edmund Andros arrived in
Maryland to assume control of the government.

1693. Sir Edmund Andros. Remained in Maryland
about ten days before returning to Virginia.

1693-1694. Colonel Nicholas Greenberry.
Appointed president of the Council by Andros.

1694. Sir Edmund Andros. Remained in Maryland
about a week.

1694. Sir Thomas Lawrence. Appointed president
of the Council by Andros.

1694-1698/9. Sir Francis Nicholson.
1698/9-1702. Colonel Nathaniel Blackiston.

1702-1704. Thomas Tench Appointed president of
the Council by Blackiston.

1704-1709. Colonel John Seymour.

1709-1714. Major General Edward Lloyd. Elected
president of the Council when Colonel Francis
Jenkins, who was senior member of the Council
and thus entitled to succeed Seymour, failed to
assert his right promptly.

1714-1715. John Hart.

1715-1720. John Hart. Continued to serve as
governor after control of the province was
returned to Charles, fifth Lord Baltimore, a
professed Protestant.

1720. Thomas Brooke. Became president of the
Council by virtue of his seniority when Hart
returned to England.

1721-1727. Charles Calvert.
1727-1731. Benedict Leonard Calvert.
1731-1732. Samuel Ogle.
1732-1733. Charles Calvert, Lord Proprietary.
1733-1742. Samuel Ogle.
1742-1746/7. Thomas Bladen.
1746/7-1752. Samuel Ogle.

1752-1753. Benjamin Tasker. Became president of
the Council upon the death of Governor Ogle.

1753-1769. Horatio Sharpe.

1769-1776. Robert Eden. Eden was in England
from May to November 1774, during which time
Richard Lee, president of the Council, governed
the province. Lee also governed the province
briefly in 1776 during the interval between the
departure of Eden and the assumption of the
government by the Convention.

REVOLUTIONARY INTERREGNUM

During the years 1774-1776, the powers of
government increasingly came to be exercised by
extralegal assemblies. In all there were nine meet-
ings of six appointed or duly elected provincial
conventions. Apparently neither contemporaries
nor subsequent publishers of the extant proceedings
were certain how to differentiate separately elected
and self-contained conventions from those sessions
that were merely a continuation of an adjourned
meeting. This confusion partly results from the
ambiguity of the surviving journals. On July 3,
1776, the penultimate Convention decreed that its
own dissolution date would be August 1, 1776. The
last entry on July 6, however, recorded that "the
convention adjourns till Thursday the first day of
August next...." For convenience each session is
listed below as a distinct convention, although there
were elections only to the second, fourth, fifth, sixth,
and ninth.

It was inconvenient for so large a group (at one
meeting there were 141 delegates) to remain in
continuous session; therefore, Councils of Safety
were elected by the Conventions to exercise execu-
tive power during the intervals between Convention
meetings. With some exceptions, the Councils of
Safety were composed of nine members, five from
the Western Shore and four from the Eastern Shore.