Henry Harford

[citation needed] Henry Harford was born in Bond Street, London, on 5 April 1758, the fruit of an extra-marital union between Lord Baltimore and his mistress Mrs. Hester Whelan.

When the last Lord Baltimore died in Naples in 1771 at the age of 39, the thirteen-year-old Henry became heir to all of Frederick's estates, including those in Britain, as the eldest son of the deceased peer.

Eden, the figurehead of English presence in the colony and a well-liked man as well as a good governor, left for England in June 1776, his authority having been fatally undermined by the Maryland Convention and the rapid erosion of British rule.

However, events in America moved against his interests, and in 1781, the new State of Maryland confiscated all of Henry Harford's estates and used their income to help finance the cash-strapped revolutionary government and its militia.

In 1785, Harford formally petitioned the Maryland General Assembly, claiming lost rents from 1771 (the date of his father's death) until the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

[3][4] Harford's petition to the assembly included a letter in which he recognized the "free state" of Maryland, but appealed to "the dictates of equity and the feelings of humanity," and further argued that his need for the restoration of his land was great, citing the "relief of his financial situation to avoid further embarrassments.

"[3] In the end, he had no success in retrieving his land or his lost rents, despite the fact that both Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Samuel Chase argued in his favor.

In their reasoning for this rejection, the Senate cited Henry's absence during the war (though he was but a child), and his father Frederick's alienation of his subjects, as major factors.

In addition, the Treaty of Paris, which brought an end to the Revolutionary War, was vague on the subject of loyalists and their property claims against the new United States of America.

[3] Seen from Harford's point of view, the American Revolution must have seemed little more than an assault on private property, whereby a new class of landowners became wealthy at the expense of the former ruling elite.