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CHAPTER THREE
Thomas Reading, Public Printer—The Keith Sermon, Annapolis,
1701—The Collected Laws of 1707—The Begin-
nings of the Annual Session Laws
URING the years which followed the publication of that
collection of laws which has been described in the fore-
going chapter of this narrative as the Bladen-Reading
edition of 1700, it is probable that the press which Thomas
Reading was operating at Annapolis continued, whether
with or without Bladen's participation is not known, to
take care of the public business of the Province, and oc-
casionally even to issue a pamphlet of a political or religious character. Only
one Annapolis imprint, however, has been recorded between the years 1700
and 1704. The title of this work was The Power of the Gospel, in the Conver-
sion of Sinners. In a sermon preached at Annapolis, in Maryland, By George
Keith ..... July the 4th. Its imprint read, "Printed and are to be sold by
Thomas Reading, at the Sign of the George. Anno Domini MDCCIII"
The place of publication of this sermon is not given in the imprint, but
there remains evidence of a conclusive and interesting character to testify
to its Annapolis origin. In Keith's Journal,1 under the date of July 4, 1703,
the preacher himself writes these words:
"I preached at Annapolis, on I. Thess. I. 5. and had a large Auditory well affected; my
Sermon at the request of a worthy Person who heard it, was printed at Annapolis, mostly
at his Charge; and Copies of it sent by him, to many parts of the Country. It is Bound up
with other Printed Sermons and Tracts, in the Book abovementioned, which I presented
to the Honourable Society, soon after my arrival into England."
The author of these words and of the sermon which they refer to was
that George Keith who has been remembered as a factious participant in
the religious controversies of the colonies at this period. Formerly a Quaker
schoolmaster of Philadelphia, at this time a clergyman of the Church of
England, he had been the instigator and center, a decade before, of a con-
1 Keith, George, A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck, on the Continent of North America.
London, 1706; p. 66. See p. 39 in reprint in Collections of Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, New York,
1851.
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