Seeds Of Liberty

In the summer of 1776, more than a year after the start of the Revolutionary War, Maryland was among the last holdouts among the 13 colonies in authorizing a declaration of independence from Great Britain. The colony's major landholders, who dominated political affairs, were reluctant to take that step, but tradespeople, merchants and common citizens became increasingly convinced that reconciliation with England was impossible and agitated for a formal separation. The state's convention finally agreed to support independence on June 28, but communications in those days were slow. On Thursday, July 4, 1776, The Maryland Gazette of Annapolis, then the state's newspaper of record, went to press without knowledge of the momentous events that had taken place in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia that week. (Scans of the original papers are available on the Maryland State Archives Web site, www.msa.md.gov.) The front page that day was dominated by a months-old report on the happenings in Parliament in London and dispatches from sea captains and soldiers about the progress of the war. The back pages were filled with advertisements offering rewards for runaway indentured servants and want-ads for a good weaver, cord wood for a furnace and used linen rags, three pence a pound. But in between are letters written by Maryland citizens urging their representatives to break once and for all from Great Britain. Here's what Marylanders were saying 233 years ago today.

We are informed that the following INSTRUCTIONS are drawn up and signed by a great number of inhabitants of Charles County,

To Josiah Hawkins, Thomas Stone, Robert T. Hooe, Joseph B. Harrison and William Harrison, Esqrs.

WE the subscribers, freemen of Charles county, in the province of Maryland, taking into most serious consideration the present state of the unhappy dispute between Great-Britain and the United colonies, and the very great distress and hardships they have brought upon us thereby, think proper to deliver you our sentiments, and to instruct you in certain points relative to your conduct in the next convention, as representatives of this county. ...