F176 M3 no.8 T THE LORDS BALTIMORE. memory of the founders of States and of great institutions, benevolent, literary or civil, should be cherished with patriotic fervor, and that of the Baltimore family should be especially interesting to every Marylander; not that all the members of it were persons of splendid abilities, or of great achievements, or even of honorable conduct, but they were all more or less intimately connected with the early history of our State, and several of them rendered distinguished services to mankind. There is no connected history of the family extant. There is no complete biography of any one of them. The materials for the history of them are very scant, and they must be sought in old chronicles, colonial records, books of peerage and contemporary periodicals. From these some disconnected facts may be drawn, some of which it is not easy to reconcile with others. If I have succeeded in bringing together some memoranda of this family and stringing them in chronological order and historical sequence, I shall M741111 2 5 |