Zenger's Maryland Venture The Earliest Assembly Proceedings

Constitution of Maryland, the same may be printed, Resolved that any person have the
Liberty of printing them that will undertake the same."¹

In spite of the invitation thus cordially extended, no one seems to have
volunteered to assume the risk of the publication, so that as the session
drew near to its close the delegates found themselves compelled to request
one of their own number, Thomas Bordley, a leader in their struggle, to
edit and to have printed a collection containing the Charter and "such of
the Debates & proceedings of the three Sessions of this Assembly as relate
to the Government or Judicature of this Province,"² a request "which the
said Thomas Bordley Esqr being present promised his Endeavour to per-
form." A year later the journal records that Mr. Bordley brought into the
House several printed copies of the "proceedings of the Lower House in the
years 1722/1723: 1724 relating to the Government and Judicature of this
province ...," and in receiving them, it was entered on the book that

"..... this House ..... unanimously return their thanks to the said Thomas Bordley
Esqr for his Extraordinary Care and pains in making a Collection of the said proceedings
and Composing the preface thereto and getting them printed for the publick Service ...."'

This collection of debates printed by Andrew Bradford of Philadelphia
is a vital document in the constitutional history of the Province. Further-
more the series of Votes and Proceedings, the publication of which began
a year later to be regularly provided for by the Lower House, and which
has continued without serious interruption until the present time, traces
its origin to this compilation of legislative debates on the "Government
and Judicature" of Maryland.

¹L. H. J., October 10, 1724, Archives of Maryland, 35:99. The author has assumed, as the narrative indicates
at this point, that this resolution of October 10, 1724, was carried into effect when the delegates requested
Thomas Bordley to edit and have printed his well known compilation containing the Charter and such of the
debates and proceedings of 1722-1724 as related to the government and judicature of the Province. With equal
force, however, this resolution may be said to refer to the "printed Copys of the Address and the Resolves of the
Lower House in October Assembly 1722" which were produced in the House on October 13, 1724, and "well
approved of in the manner as they are now printed." Before accepting the second interpretation of the docu-
ments, however, it is well to recall that as far as is known there was no printing press in Maryland in October 1724,
and that it would have been almost impossible to have sent copy to Philadelphia and received in Annapolis a
printed paper of several pages in the interval between October 10th and October 13th. The alternative interpre-
tation is that some person acting without authority had printed the "Address and Resolves," and that becoming
aware of this the delegates had confirmed his action by an ex post facto resolution; that is the resolution of Octo-
ber 10th, thus making it possible for the publication to be presented for approval on October ijth.

²L. H. J., October 29, 1724, Archives of Maryland, 35:149.

³L. H. J., October 7, 1725, Archives of Maryland, 35: 303. For a valuable discussion of the contention over
the English Statutes, the reader is referred to Sioussat, St. G. L., The English Statutes in Maryland (Johns Hop-
kins Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XXI, Nos. 11 and 12, Baltimore, 1903). Mr. Sioussat's
suggestion that probably the preface to the collection described above was the work of Daniel Dulany, the Elder,
does not seem to be borne out by the extract from the House Journal in which its composition is specifically
attributed to Bordley.

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