BIBLIOGRAPHIES of the printed works relating
specifically to Maryland have usually begun with
the tract entitled A Relation of the successful
beginnings of the Lord Baltemore's Plantation in Mary-
land, published in London in the year 1634. For some
reason no one seems to have observed the absence from
the first position in the list of one or more of those pro-
motion tracts that ordinarily announce and advertise a
proposed adventure in colonization. It is likely that if
this omission had been noticed and commented upon, it
would have been explained, satisfactorily enough, by a
reminder of the unusual character of a venture intended
to provide asylum in America for persecuted English
Catholics; the suggestion would have been offered and
accepted that under the existing English laws publicity
was the last thing desired for his project by the leader
of the colony and by his Jesuit advisers. But happily this
is a world in which beliefs change and theories undergo
reversal. It is easily inferred from the existence of the
Declaration of the Lord Baltemore's Plantation in Mary-
land, presented here in facsimile, that the Maryland
colonization scheme was promoted in the accepted man-
ner of the time, and if this inference removes the
glamor of mystery from the Maryland beginnings, and
so displeases the romantic, it compensates for this loss
by inducing a better understanding of the origins of the
third English-American colony.

   It is by no means certain, indeed, that the Relation
of 1634 was entitled to the place it held at the head of
the Maryland list even before the recent recognition of
the Declaration as claimant for that position, for scholars
have long been aware of the existence of an undated
edition of the Charter of Maryland in twenty-three

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