appointed William Fuller, Richard Preston, and eight others to be Commissioners " for the well ordering, directing " and governing the affairs of Maryland under his highness the " Lord Protector ;" in consequence of which Commission the provincial records were delivered up to Durand, the new Secretary, and all power withdrawn from Lord Baltimore and his officers. Previous to this final seizure of the government by Cromwell, the contentions between the friends to the new order of things, and those of the Proprietary had arisen to an open rupture, and a civil war ensued, which after some skirmishes was ended by a decisive engagement, in which, Lord Baltimore's Governor, Captain William Stone, being defeated, was taken prisoner, and condemned to be shot; but the sentence was not executed, owing to the refusal of the soldiers, on account of their respect for his character, and the benefits many of them had received from him, to perform it. He underwent, however, a long and rigorous confinement. In the mean time, the Government of Cromwell's Commissioners was not wise and temperate enough to preserve the public tranquility, which was again disturbed, in the year 1656, by an insurrection set on foot by Josias Fendall, a man as restless and intriguing as Cleyborne: but this commotion served only, in its suppression, to encrease the rigour of the new administration, and the Province continued in a very distracted state, when, in the year 1658, the Government was, upon articles previously agreed on, surrendered by the Commissioners to Fendall, whom the Proprietary, judging of his zeal from the turbulence of his character, had appointed Governor of the Province. The defection of this man is the last historical incident of which I shall for the present take notice: upon the Assembly's meeting in 1659, he continued, by a deep wrought intrigue, to dissolve the upper House, and surrendered to the Burgesses his remaining powers under Lord Baltimore, whose authority in Maryland it was the object of this unexampled proceeding wholly to destroy: In pursuance of this design, he accepted from the lower House a Commission as Governor; Gerrard and Utye, his confederates in the scheme, and Slye the Speaker of the House, being appointed his Council. He continued not long, however, to exercise the power so illegitimately acquired. The Proprietary having, on information of his treachery, appointed his Brother Philip Calvert Governor; Fendall was tried and found guilty of high treason, but in the end punished only by a pecuniary fine and an incapacity for future places of trust. Having brought this imperfect sketch to a period at which the affairs of Maryland began to assume some appearance of stability, for the restoration of Charles II. confirmed the reinstatement of the Proprietary in his Government, which from thenceforth continued