Well Disposed to Give Battle – The Patriots of Charles County

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I.  Rising to Importance:  Thomas Stone, part 1

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Distinction & Disaster:  Thomas Stone, part 2

Within the short space of six months, Thomas Stone went from the Committee of Correspondence, to the Provincial Convention and then became a delegate to the Second Continental Congress.  It is not entirely known how he was able to achieve such prominence in such a short span of time.  Nonetheless, Stone was well known by many of the more tenured officials and, even though a political moderate, brought balance to the men composing the Continental Congress.

Thomas Stone, signed the
Declaration of Independence for
Maryland at age 33.

War had already broken out by the time Stone arrived for the first meeting of Congress in Philadelphia in May of 1775.  Three weeks earlier, blood had been spilled in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord.  Stone had sketchy details of the event before he traveled to Philadelphia.  He had written about his concerns to his wife, Margaret, saying that the bloodshed would “reduce both England and America to a state to which no friend of either ever wished to see.”  

Even though blood had been spilt and prolonged warfare appeared evident, Stone’s main concern, as a moderate, was the restoration of harmonious relations between Britain and her embittered colonies.  Stone, however, was willing to meet with the British only upon “terms of security and justice to America”.  Barring those terms, Stone felt “war, or anything, would be preferable to a surrender of our rights.”

Stone’s moderate stance did not change over the following year.  Although most of his fellow moderates now felt that a break with England was needed, Stone continued in the early days of 1776 to search for reasonable accommodations, which would allow peace to gain a foothold.  

The conflict within Stone was evident.  In a letter to his uncle, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Stone wrote that he knew, “the dye was cast- the fatal stab is given to any future connection between this country and Britain except in the relation of conqueror and vanquished, which I can’t think of without horror and indignation.”  In the same letter, however, Stone railed against the “rash and precipitate councils of a few men,” probably John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, who pushed for independence, “when the minds of men are not prepared for such an event… and appears to me the most weak and i