The most plausible theory upon which I can account for this harsh proceeding is suggested by the fact that parties in the Province took the same complexion with those in the mother country and ran parallel with them,—­that the same excitements which agitated the minds of the people in England were industriously fomented here, where no similar reason for them existed, as the volunteer work of demagogues who saw in them the means of promoting their own interest,—­that, in fact, this opposition to the Proprietary grew out of a failing in our ancestors which has not yet been cured in their descendants, a weakness in favor of the loaves and fishes.  The party in the majority carried the elections, and felt, of course, as all parties do who perform such an exploit, that they had made a very gigantic sacrifice for the good of the country and deserved to be remunerated for such an act of heroism, and thereupon set up and asserted that venerable doctrine which has been erroneously and somewhat vaingloriously claimed as the conception of a modern statesman, namely,—­“that to the victors belong the spoils.”  I rejoice in the discovery that a dogma so profound and so convenient has the sanction of antiquity to commend it to the platform of the patriots of our own time.

I must in a few words notice another charge against Lord Baltimore, which was even more serious than the first, and to which the cupidity of the King lent a willing ear.  Parliament had passed an act for levying certain duties on the trade of the Southern Colonies, which were very oppressive to the commerce of Maryland.  These duties were gathered by Collectors specially appointed for the occasion, who held their commissions from the Crown, and who were stationed at the several ports of entry of the Province.  The frequent evasion of these duties gave rise to much ill-will between the Collectors and the people.  Lord Baltimore was charged with having connived at these evasions, and with obstructing the collection of the royal revenue.  His chief accusers were the Collectors, who, being Crown officers, seemed naturally to array themselves against him.  Although there was really no foundation for this complaint, yet the King, who never threw away a chance to replenish his purse, compelled the Proprietary to pay by way of retribution a large sum into the Exchequer.

I have no need to dwell upon this subject, and have referred to it only because it explains the relation between Lord Baltimore and Christopher Rousby, and has therefore some connection with my story.  Rousby was an enemy to the Proprietary; and from a letter preserved by Chalmers it appears there was no love lost between them.  Lord Baltimore writes to the Earl of Anglesey, the President of the King’s Council, in 1681,—­“I have already written twice to your Lordship about Christopher Rousby, who I desired might be removed from his place of Collector of his Majesty’s Customs,—­he having been a great knave, and a disturber of the trade and peace of the Province”; which letter, it seems, had no effect,—­as Christopher Rousby was continued in his post.  He was doubtless emboldened by the failure of this remonstrance against him to exhibit his ill-will towards the Proprietary in more open and more vexatious modes of annoyance.