American Author Brantz Mayer Transcribes A Maryland Immigration Record For His Historical Research

BRANTZ MAYER (1809-1879). Mayer, an American author, lawyer, and politician, wrote about the histories of Maryland, of which he was a native, and Mexico, where he briefly served as a diplomat. AD. 1pg. 8” x 13”. N.d. N.p. An autograph document by American author and historian Brantz Mayer, composed of a transcription of a 1746 document from the Maryland colony and nineteenth-century commentary on said document. The transcription is a list of Irish immigrants who came to Maryland colony in 1746 aboard the ship of a Captain Park. Three were convicts, and the rest were probably indentured servants. The document certifies that all these immigrants were of the Protestant faith. As the nineteenth-century notes state, such a certification was at one time necessary in pre-Revolutionary Maryland to avoid the fines demanded from Catholics or the masters of Catholic servants. The colony of Maryland was originally founded and governed by the Catholic Lords of Baltimore as a haven for Catholics, and the 1649 Act of Toleration granted such freedom to all Christians in Maryland. However, this act was overturned shortly after, and Catholicism was severely repressed during and after Maryland’s 1689 Protestant Revolution. Religious freedom would not return to Maryland’s Catholics until America’s independence. The document states: “Papists in Maryland The following is a curious document which owes its existence to some old law of Maryland (1715. 1717. 1728. 1732) imposing certain duties upon every Papist Servant imported into the Province from Ireland, and requiring certain evidence of their being Protestants to exempt the owners from those duties. Upon inspecting the names on this list – all of which are unquestionably Irish, and (as may be seen in the original) the inability of all except the first to write his name, - & he too only after two attempts; - and observing that the names of all are written by the same person around the X; we can scarcely doubt that they were ren’d by the Captain who doubtless also inscribed the Declaration of Faith – We may very easily believe that these intolerant laws were thus evaded with great faculty. – “Capt Park, list of Irish Servants & Convicts 1746. – from among Gov. Sharpe’s & the Ridout papers. ‘We do declare that we believe that there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper or in the Elements of Bread, Wine, or after the consecration thereof by any persons whatsoever Richard Huse (? Hughes) Paddy X Scollaw James X Hearn Roger X Conerly Thos X Macdaniel Owen X MacNolty James X Conoway Thos X Barney Darience X Macnelis Brian X Macmamman Willm X Macguinness Richd X Walliss jas X Magoone Thos X Connerly Owen X Dow a list of convicts on board the Brigg Nancy, Capt Js Park. Commandr from Ireland Teag Rork Forloch Rork Margaret Magee”. The name Brantz Mayer is written in pencil in the bottom left corner of the document. Mayer was a native of Baltimore who evidently had a great interest in the history of Maryland. This document was likely research for one of his books, either Calvert and Penn, or the Growth of Civil and Religious Liberty in the United States or Baltimore: Past and Present, with Biographical Sketches of Its Representative Men. The document is in good condition with discoloration to the upper section. The original document is in the papers of colonial Maryland governor Horatio Sharpe (1718-1790).