A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

It contains a concise statement of the causes of the Revolution and an ex-
pression of loyalty to their Majesties, presented in terms appreciably more
moderate than had been employed in the "Declaration," and what is of the
greatest importance in this story of the Maryland press, it bears at the bot-
tom of the sheet the following colophon:

Maryland printed by order of the Assembly at the Citty | of St. Maryes August: a6th.
1689.|

Coode's assertion in his letter of December 17th that he was sending a
copy of the Assembly's "Address," the fact that Coode's letter and a printed,
attested copy of that "Address" were received by the Lords of Trade from
Lord Shrewsbury on the same day, and the colophon of the "Address" it-
self combine to furnish a reasonably clear pedigree for the printed broad-
side in the Public Record Office which, in the absence of a copy of the
Maryland edition of the "Declaration," must be claimed as the earliest ex-
tant issue of the Maryland press, and the chief bibliographical evidence for
the seventeenth-century origin of typography in Lord Baltimore's Province.

LATER ACTIVITIES OF MARYLAND'S FIRST PRINTER

When we find Nuthead figuring once more in public affairs, the Province,
now under a royal governor, has resumed that aspect of peacefulness into
which the turbulency of the Protestant Associators had entered brusquely
some four years before. On October 14, 1693, there was read in the Council
a deposition made by William Nuthead in regard to a printing "job" which
Colonel Darnall, agent of the dispossessed Lord Baltimore, had demanded
that he put through as a "rush order." The transaction is of importance in
this narrative inasmuch as in the entry which records it, one is enabled to
catch a glimpse of the first Maryland printer in the actual prosecution of his
business, and to observe the straight course which a public printer must needs
hold to in that day of restricted liberty of the press. At the meeting of the
Council on the day named above, there was

"Produced at this Board Coppy of a blanck Warrant which was Given by Coll Darnall
& Mr. Smith as a president (sic, precedent) to William Nuthead the Printer in order to
print a certain Number of the same, for their Use, the Tenor whereof followed in these
words, Vizt.... [Here follows in the original a blank land warrant running in the Proprie-
tary's name].

On the back of the abovesd Warrant was taken the following Deposition, Vizt.
Octbr 14th 1693.

The Deposition of William Nuthead of St. Maries City Printer Aged Thirty Nine years
or thereabouts. This Depont saith that Coll Darnall & Mr. Richard Smith comeing to this
Deponts house on the 6th of this instant month would have had him to have printed the
within written blank Warrant to the Number of ffive hundred, to be done imediately out

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