Bacon's Laws the Typographical Monument of Colonial Maryland

brought by a disreputable woman of his neighborhood. He was acquitted
of this charge, and having been fined one hundred pounds sterling for her
"false clamor," his accuser was committed to jail in default of payment.
Between these two occurrences, he became seriously affected in his health,
and his physical condition was not improved by the distress which ensued
upon the loss at sea of his only son, his "dear Jacky." One is not astonished
to find him in some respects a broken-spirited man in the later years of his
residence in Talbot County.

Bacon's loyalty to the Proprietary interest shows him to have been a
man of conservative tendencies. One must believe that his conscience was
behind that loyalty, for he does not seem to have been the sort to have ren-
dered service from unworthy motives. In the year 1754, the Proprietary
recognized his devotion by appointing him one of his domestic chaplains
in Maryland with the privilege of wearing his "scarf," the insignia pertain-
ing to the holder of that office in a nobleman's household. When the rector-
ship of All Saints Parish in Frederick County fell vacant, Bacon in 1759
was appointed to fill the vacancy as "reader," and finally was inducted as
rector early in 1762. In the year 1770 this parish was said to be worth one
thousand pounds currency a year, but it is probable that during the greater
part of Bacon's rectorship its value had been much less. In 1753 Sharpe
had appraised its income at only three hundred and ninety-four pounds
currency.

In the Maryland Gazette for June 9, 1768, there appeared the following
notice, with the quotation of which this short account of Thomas Bacon
approaches its close:

On Tuesday, the 24th Ult. died at Frederick-Town, in Frederick County, the Rev'd
Thomas Bacon, Rector of All Saints Parish, in that County, Author of a laborious and ju-
dicious Performance entitled, A Complete System of the revenue of Ireland, published in
1737, by Order of the Chief Commissioners and Governors of the Revenue, in that Kingdom.
He also published several other valuable Pieces; and in the Decline of Life, by several years
intense Labour, compiled a compleat Body of the Laws of this Province, as lately published.
—His humane, benevolent Disposition and amiable Deportment, gained him the Love and
Esteem of all his Parishioners. He was likewise an affectionate Husband, a tender Parent,
a kind Master, and a most agreeable Companion; which renders his Death not only a Loss
to his Acquaintances but to Society in general.

In spite of the emoluments which must have been his as the rector of All
Saints, Bacon left an embarrassed estate. In advertisements published in
several issues of the Maryland Gazette, beginning with that of July 14,
1768, his widow and administratrix asked the "indulgence of the several
creditors" until she could ascertain the whole amount of her late husband's

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