Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/19

Rh the truth, a willingness and a desire to help those who need help, become controlling principles of life, and selfishness is eradicated as much as it is possible for human nature to be changed.

Thus developed the Maryland character. Love of country and of friends, regard for truth and justice, toleration of differences of opinion, for five generations had been the directing influence of their lives. So when in 1774 news came that the people of Boston had been shot down in their streets by men in red coats, the people rose as one man. From Mills' Creek, whence Braddock had marched twenty years before to disaster and death, to St. Mary's, where free thought had been proclaimed first in all the world, the men of Maryland mustered in companies and battalions, and in two weeks the province was organized for defense. It raised money and provisions which it sent to Boston, and, inasmuch as the port of Boston was closed to trade, formed an association pledging the people of Maryland, men, women and children, never to use any imported goods until justice was done to Boston, just as ten years before it had refused to recognize the Stamp Act. When the farmers of New England met and drove the British regulars at Breed's Hill, the prompt response of Maryland was a battalion of riflemen which marched from Frederick to Boston, 550 miles, to reinforce their brethren. Maryland had no interest in this fight. She enjoyed a just and liberal government. Her people made their own laws, levied their own taxes and expended them for their own benefit, and there was no friction between them and the government. Their governor, Sir Robert Eden, was one of the most popular gentlemen in the province. But when the word went out that Boston needed assistance, every country committee, every court, every provincial assembly proclaimed with one voice, "The cause of Boston is the cause of all," and from that hour to the signature of the definite treaty of peace, Maryland never faltered in her support of the cause of her