Rousby was an enemy to the Proprietary; and from a letter preserved
by Chalmers it appears there was no love lost between them. Lord
Baltimore writes to the Earl of Anglesey, the President of the King's
Council, in 1681,--"I have already written twice to your Lordship
about Christopher Rousby, who I desired might be removed from his
place of Collector of his Majesty's Customs,--he having been a great
knave, and a disturber of the trade and peace of the Province"; which
letter, it seems, had no effect,--as Christopher Rousby was continued
in his post. He was doubtless emboldened by the failure of this
remonstrance against him to exhibit his ill-will towards the
Proprietary in more open and more vexatious modes of annoyance.
All these embarrassments threw a heavy shadow over the latter years
of Lord Baltimore's life, and now drove him to the necessity of
making a visit to England for the purpose of personal explanation and
defence before the King. He accordingly took his departure in the
month of June, 1684, intending to return in a few months; but a tide
of misfortune that now set in upon him prevented that wish, and he
never saw Maryland again.
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