A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

Foley (Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, London, 1878,
v.j) nor Father T. A. Hughes (History of the Society of Jesus in North America,
London, 4 v., 1907-17) give the impression that Father White's catechism
was printed. Indeed in a letter to the author, dated from Rome, August 13,
1920, Father Hughes,after commenting upon the dispersion of the archives
of the Professed House among several Jesuit houses of Europe, goes on to
say that, "There is not a jot or tittle in them (/. e. the European Jesuit Col-
lections), as far as they concern America, which I did not take down ....."
He says further that throughout the entire course of his research he "never
lighted upon the catechism or McSherry's Report' on it," and finally that he
was unable to conceive of the existence of a printing press among the Mary-
land Jesuits in Father White's time. In Carlos Sommervogel's edition of De
Backer's Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus, 8: 1092, is given a list of
Father White's printed works followed by the entry of a "Grammar, Dic-
tionary and Catechism,in the Indian language," to which is appended this
note, "Mr. Shea dit que cette grammaire est restee en MS, a Rome."

Among writers contemporaneous with Father White whose evidence is of
interest in this connection are the anonymous author of the Florus Anglo-
Bavaricus, Liege, 1685: the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu, 1643, and
Nathaniel Southwell's edition of the same work, Rome, 1676, in all of which
the titles of Father White's Maryland writings are given, but no mention
is made of any of them being in printed form. Certainly one of these writers,
if the catechism had been a printed work, would have given such biblio-
graphical details as place and date of publication, etc. In opposition to this
strong negative evidence exists Scharf's statement alone, unsupported by
any reference as to when or where Father McSherry had said that the cate-
chism was in printed form. Finally, even if one accepts Scharf's statement
to the extent of believing that Father McSherry saw a printed catechism in
the tongue of the Maryland Indians, there is yet no evidence that it had been
printed in Maryland. If printed at all, the probability is that it was printed
on the continent of Europe.

The habit which Colonel Scharf had of jumping to his conclusions is well
illustrated by his relation of the story of a later press (circa 1660), based
upon an "act for the publication of all the laws within this Province," passed
in the Assembly of 1660. He assumes that the word "publication" as used
here meant printed publication. Mr. James Walter Thomas has pointed out
(Chronicles of Colonial Maryland, 2d ed.,p. 58) that if Scharf had read more
than the title of this act, he would have seen immediately that publication
by voice proclamation was specifically prescribed.

[148]