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Tensions stemming from the Stamp Act had continued to grow, especially with the renewal of the fees on tobacco and an upcoming election. Prominent Marylanders took their grievances to the Maryland Gazette.

Colonists had been angry since the Stamp Act of 1765 and then the Townshend Acts of 1767, causing even more ire. By the early 1770s, some of the acts were being repealed or expiring; one would think this would quell the rising tide of rebellion, but Parliament stood fast to its position that it had the right to legislate the colonies. When it came time for the Royal Governor to either renew or let the Tobacco Act lapse, Marylanders rose up in protest. Tobacco was an important cash crop in Maryland along with wheat, which was also being taxed. Royal Governor Robert Eden, installed in 1771 after the death of Frederick Calvert, the late notice of Calvert’s death to Maryland, disrupted the General Assembly. In May of 1773, an election was held for new House Delegates. With the Governor renewing the Tobacco Act and a sweep in favor of the Governor in the election, where is a wealthy lawyer with large agricultural holdings to vent? The Maryland Gazette!

Letters from Brutus, Antillon, the First Citizen, and Cassius became regulars in the Maryland Gazette over the Summer and Fall of 1773. Who were the people behind the pseudonyms, and who was fighting whom? William Paca and Samuel Chase were happy to see their own names published below their words. Many others decided to use a pen name taken from the classics, evoking the struggle against dictatorship. Some of these individuals are known to us, but others, like Brutus and Cassius, have never been identified. Both Brutus and Cassius’s letters speaking out against the Intolerable Acts were printed in other papers across the colonies, but Antillon and the First Citizen were both Marylanders.

 

Antillon, possibly meant to evoke Antileon from Greek mythology and history, was Daniel Dulany the Younger. An Annapolis native, he served as Lord Mayor of Annapolis from 1764-1765; his brother Walter would serve as Lord Mayor from 1766-1767. He was sent to England for his education, graduating from Cambridge and then Middle Temple for his law degree. A well-respected lawyer who also served in the Maryland Parliament, he was a loyalist, but he did believe that taxation without representation was wrong.

The First Citizen was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a wealthy Catholic. Catholicism in America has its roots in Maryland. When the Dove and the Ark arrived in 1633, Father Andrew White, a Jesuit priest among the colonists, held the first Mass in the British Colony. You can visit the 1978 recreation of the Dove during Downrigging. While the beginnings of the Maryland colony had tolerance for Catholics, they soon found themselves with numerous restrictions following the Protestant Revolution between 1689 and 1692. Catholic children could be forced into apprenticeships or sent to orphanages, and Catholic education was banned in 1704. They were also banned from civil and military office. Despite the restrictions, several Catholic families were able to thrive, mostly due to their existing land holdings and fortunes. Along with the Carroll family, there were the Digges and the Lees, and another Revolutionary, Notley Young. Both families used their vast wealth to help other Catholics. Despite the prejudice against him, Carroll became well respected. His First Citizen letters gained him popularity with the Revolutionary cause; he was consulted on how to deal with British vessels arriving in the Bay. Despite the ban on public office, he served as delegate to the Annapolis Convention, then the Continental Congress, and even signed the Declaration of Independence. After the Revolution, he would also go on to serve in the Maryland Senate.

The role of the Maryland Gazette has to be acknowledged. When the Stamp Act came out, then-publisher Jonas Green used his paper to protest the act. Not surprising, since he was a protégé of Benjamin Franklin. In 1767, his widow, Anne Catharine Green, would become the first female newspaper publisher in America; she would continue to keep the political debate alive in the paper. Without newspapers, we wouldn’t have these debates and a deeper understanding of the contemporaneous feelings leading up to the American Revolution. This is why freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment.