A worse danger for Maryland arose in 1681, when William Penn obtained a patent from the Crown for a large tract of land, bounded on the south by a °circle drawn at 12 miles distance from New Castle, northward and westward to the beginning of the 40th degree of north lati tude and thence by the straight line westward.° Penn also obtained from the Duke of York a grant of New Castle, with a territory of 12 miles around it, and the lands bounding thence on the Delaware southward to Cape Henlopen. Penn began at once to colonize both his province, which took the name of Pennsylvania, and his territories on the Delaware, and endeavored to gain over the frontier inhabitants of Mary land, 11;s great object being to gain access to the waters of the Upper Chesapeake. Baltimore strove to keep his province and wished to fix the 40th parallel at once. The two proprietors met several times, but Penn would not make direct observations of latitude. On the other hand, he suggested that measurement be made from the capes of the Chesapeake, by which means, he said, Baltimore might gain from ginia as much as he would lose to the north.
While Penn delayed the decision as to the location of the 40th parallel, and placed his city of Philadelphia just south of it, so as to obtain the advantage of possession and to manifest his brotherly love for the rightful owner of the land by wresting his territory from him, he pressed hard for a determination of his claim to Delaware. The death of Charles II placed Penn's patron, the Duke of York, upon the throne, as James II, so that 'it is not surprising that the English Privy Council, on 7 Nov. 1685, decided that the peninsula should be divided between the claimants by a meridian line run ning from the latitude of Cape Henlopen north, until it was tangent to the circumference of the circle with a radius of 12 miles from Newcastle. This decision was based on a mistaken and highly technical application of the clause in the Maryland charter, by which the territory "hith erto was granted Baltimore. These words were, in any case, words of de scription and not limitation. Furthermore, at the time the charter was granted, the only Europeans within the province were fur traders, whose claim had been disallowed.
James II talked of having the Maryland charter forfeited, as a part of his general policy of colonial administration. The proprietary's position was weakened by the unfortunate kill ing of an obnoxious revenue officer, by a hot headed Irish relative of Baltimore, Col. George Talbot. In 1684 Baltimore went to England to look after his affairs there, leaving the council in charge in Maryland. Four years later, he sent out to act as executive, a conceited, wordy lawyer, who was a strong partisan of King James and who had high notions of pre rogatives. Indian troubles occurred. Rumors
arose of strange alliances between the Roman Catholics in Maryland and those in Canada. The messenger sent by Baltimore to order the proclamation of William and Mary died on the way, and the council refused to proclaim the new sovereigns, without orders from the pro prietary. In July 1689, Nehemiah Blackistone, collector of royal customs, and an old enemy of Baltimore, rose in revolt, together with Coode and other Protestants. The agitators were so determined, and Baltimore's supporters were so lukewarm, that their °Protestant Associa tion° was supreme within a month, and the proprietary government was overthrown. The new rulers asked the Crown to administer Maryland as a royal province, and their request was granted, the first royal governor coming in 1692. The charter was not forfeited, however, and the title to land and other private rights was left to Baltimore.
The royal governor brought a greater regu larity and formality into the proceedings of the government. We find the development of a highly trained and able body of lawyers, who gave the Maryland bar its earliest renown. Francis Nicholson, as governor, saw the estab lishment of the Church of England in the prov ince, and a levy made for its support of tobacco from every taxable person, a tax which con tinued until Maryland ceased to be a province.
About this time came the beginning of educa tion and libraries in Maryland, and the first Presbyterian churches on the Eastern Shore were founded by Rev. Francis Makemie. The capital was removed from Saint Mary's City to a site on the Severn River, more centrally lo cated, where the new town of Annapolis was founded, and named in honor of Queen Anne, who, with her husband, Prince George, are com memorated in the names of two counties — the latter being the first inland one on the Western Shore. Annapolis was the first town of any importance to be founded in the province. Nearly every planter's wharf could be reached by shipping, which carried away his tobacco or wheat, so that towns were the less necessary, and the frequent attempts to establish them during the provincial period were almost al ways fruitless. Annapolis, itself, though it boasted of a remarkably cultivated and charm ing society, and possessed some fine town houses of wealthy planters, yet had but little trade. After the Treaty of Utrecht placed an important part of the African slave trade in English vessels, the negro slaves rapidly in creased in numbers throughout Maryland.