Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/102

 hand, inasmuch as Herrman had prepared a rough draft of a map of Maryland as early as January 14, 1660, it might be argued that he was holding out for the best terms from Stuyvesant or Baltimore. Then, too, is the question as to why Herrman should have applied to the Dutch governor for leave to make a map of an English province.

After having made up his mind to locate in Maryland it was Herrman’s deepest desire to establish a landed aristocracy like that in England and other continental countries. With this wish and purpose in mind he won the respect and sincere friendship of Lord Baltimore, who had worked with more or less success in establishing a system of landed properties. On more than one occasion Baltimore had observed with concern that his subjects did not appear to look upon with any great favor his scheme of establishing a baronial caste type of society. It was, therefore, refreshing for Baltimore to meet a man like Herrman who seemed eager to establish an aristocratic house. In conformity with a plan of the second Lord Baltimore, a resolution was adopted in 1636 which provided that everyone who was granted one thousand acres or more of land was to become automatically a court baron with privileges to hold court baron and court leet. The name of the manor was left to the discretion of the lord. Although there were in actual existence a number of such court barons in Maryland created by Baltimore, few if any ever quite attained the prestige and distinction held by Herrman. Baltimore, apparently desirous of placing Herrman in a class worthy of his ambition, conferred on him the special title “lord”, and so far as known is the only instance where a special title of nobility