came; instead, many settlers in Western Maryland and Western Pennsylvania hurried back to the East, impressed with the necessity of closer settlement for defensive purposes. This powerful incentive to unity was one that had never been felt by the early colonists of Maryland, who, unlike their brethren in the North, for the most part dwelt in peace with the natives.
During the war, several companies of royal troops were quartered in Baltimore. Among the officers in command, Captain Samuel Gardner, of his Majesty's Forty-seventh Regiment, was engaged in recruiting for his Majesty's service. His recruiting sergeant displayed such great zeal in the pursuit of his duty that strenuous opposition was aroused among the gentry of Baltimore, who found their indentured servants disappearing one day, to appear the next in his Majesty's uniform. Upon one occasion, Mr. Charles Ridgely and others rescued—or recaptured—six recruits, claiming that they were indentured servants, which proved, Captain Gardner said, "not to be the truth as to all of them." The irate Captain appealed to the civil authorities, with a long story about a conspiracy of "some of the
