ABSTRACT
The settlement of inhabitants reached after the Glorious Revolution, the relatively long peace following the Treaty of Utrecht, the beginnings of the Walpolean era of ‘salutary neglect’ of the colonies, and colonies’ economic and social maturation after a century of settlement, meant that by the second decade of the eighteenth century colonial societies and politics were noticeably more stable than they had ever been before, at least in long-settled provinces like Maryland. That did not stop some from thinking about the state of colonies and empire, however, and may even have encouraged men like Daniel Dulany, the Elder (1685–1753), to commentate on these issues. Dulany’s interest in colonial and imperial constitutionalism may have been sparked or shaped by the fact that he was born in Ireland. Dulany supports the first argument with a history of British liberties and their legal bulwarks, a history of Maryland proving provincial loyalty and therefore provincials’ British birthrights, and Roman and other imperial legal precedents.
