A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

In objecting to the printing of the Lower House journals, the Upper House
had in mind not so much economy, as was asserted in its message, as a dis-
like of publicity in connection with the Assembly's action on the English
statutes. Long customary in others of the colonies, however, the regular
publication of Assembly proceedings could not be postponed much longer
in Maryland. On receiving the adverse report from the Upper House, dis-
approving their suggestion that the Lower House journals be printed each
session, the delegates acted with the assertiveness customary to them in
the face of opposition to their plans. The clerk recorded their defiance in
these words:

"Notwithstanding which Message, It is Resolved that such of the debates and proceed-
ings of the last Session of Assembly as relate to the Government or Judicature of this Prov-
ince or other materiall publick Affairs thereof be printed at the Charge of the Publick And
thereupon John Beale and Vachel Denton Esqrs. are appointed to Make a Collection of
the Laws now in force to be reduced into one Volumn fit for the press with Marginall notes
and also of the proceedings above menconed and that the printers observe their directions
therein."¹

It is clear from what follows that the new printer was in danger of being
torn asunder by the jealousies and antagonisms of the parties. In the next
session of the Assembly, he was brought to the bar of the Lower House to
explain why he had failed to print the proceedings of the last two sessions
in accordance with the terms of the Lower House resolution. In his defence,
he answered that "his Honr the Governour ordered him not (to) print them
until the Bodies of Laws were first finished."² His Honor the Governor this
year chanced to be Charles Calvert, a relative of the Proprietary, a person-
age who would have been sure to support with all his power of negative
action the policy of a family which was beginning to regard the people of
Maryland as a perverse and ungrateful race. In this instance, one observes
with satisfaction that the determination of the delegates to print their con-
stitutional proceedings was equal to the ingenuity of the Governor in post-
poning the publication of them, for in the year 1727, after the body of laws
had been published and Charles Calvert had been superseded in his gov-
ernorship by Benedict Leonard Calvert, Parks issued the proceedings³ of
the three sessions of October and March 1725 and July 1726, collected and
edited by Messrs. Beale and Denton, as had been provided for in the origi-
nal resolution of March 1725/26. The victory was with the delegates; never
afterwards did the Upper House gainsay their "liberty to print."

¹L. H. J., March 23, 1725/26, Archives of Maryland, 35:484 and 485.

²L. H. J., July 14, 1726, Archives of Maryland, 35: 536.

³ Copy in the Maryland Historical Society probably unique. See bibliographical appendix.

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