seen each other until the day they claimed the flitch of bacon. The other was an honest pair in the neighborhood. The husband is described as "a man of plain good sense and a peaceable temper; the woman was dumb!" CHAPTER XLV THE KING'S REBELS MANY errors, which crept into earlier historical writings with regard to so-called convict settlers, have caused a most erroneous impression in ignorant quarters respecting the status of the real founders of the province. Happily the nearer we get to the truth of Maryland's settlement the more we find to arouse our pride in the men who in those trying early days proved themselves to be men of character and ability. There is no romance so fascinating as the true history of early Maryland under the Lords Baltimore. First the "gentlemen of very good fashion," with the sturdy artisan class to make them comfortable; later other "adventurers" who came to seek their fortunes or to add to those already enjoyed; the indentured apprentices and redemptioners, either entering a voluntary "time of service" for their passage over and the promise of fifty acres of land, or those who had been captured by "crimps" in London and basely sold against their wills into a term of servitude. The romances, the heartbreaks and the strange experiences are all bound up in the fading old parchments in the record offices. Then came the persecuted from other lands and other colonies into Maryland-such as the Puritans and QuakThen after the battle of Bothwell Bridge came the first of the Scots banished because of their loyalty to their ers. religious belief. These were the Covenanters persecuted by King Charles II. With the accession of James II affairs grew worse in Scotland, and persecution stalked abroad. We can see in our mind's eye Margaret MacLaughlin and Margaret Wilson, one feeble with age, the other radiant with youth and her rare Scotch beauty, tied to stakes on the Solway shore, with the tide creeping, creeping, inch by inch, until it enveloped them, martyrs to their faith. Then came the Jacobite uprising, and after the defeat at Preston, there was death, torture and banishment for the rebels. And in the year 1716 we find two shiploads of these political prisoners arriving in Maryland to be sold into seven years' servitude. These men were sons of women like those who faced the creeping tide of Solway rather than forsake their principles. The King tried to break their spirit by adding martyrdom to banishment. He knew the pride of his Highland clans, and he let them live to suffer humiliation. But let none who descended from these King's prisoners feel that their servitude was a disgrace. It should be rather looked upon as the halo of their martyrdom! What more glorious than the courage to rebel against the oppression and cruelty of such a tyrant! The proclamation issued by Governor John Hart in the year 1716 is as follows: "Whereas his most sacred Majesty (George I), out of his abundant clemency has caused eighty of the rebels (most of them Scotsmen, lately taken at Preston, in Lancashire), to be transported from Great Britain into this province in the ship Friendship, of Belfast, Michael Mankin commander, and signified to me his royall pleasure by one of his principall secretaries of state |