A PROCLAMATION
By the GOVERNOR of MARYLAND.
MARYLAND, SS.
To the People of the State.

Peace, prosperity, and blessings without number, to the State, have crowned the year, now drawing to its close.

While in other lands, Pestilence, or Scarcity have spread misery or want; and War, even for Right and Liberty, has desolated homes; — for us, the Earth, with unaccustomed energy, has poured forth her Abundance: Commerce and Industry have revived: Health and Prosperty have dwelt among us.

It is the bounden duty, of a Christian People, to acknowledge these blessings by some public Act of Gratitude.

It is very right, that, in a Christian State, some Day should be designated, to that end, by the Civil Authority.

IN CONFORMITY, therefore, with the usage, established by my Predecessors in Office, sanctioned by the acquiescence and approval of the People, I, THOMAS HOLLIDAY HICKS, Governor of Maryland, do, by this my Proclamation, designate and appoint THURSDAY, the 29th Day of NOVEMBER, instant, to be observed, throughout this State, as a Holyday of Thanksgiving and Prayer.

And I cordially invite all the good People of this State then to lay aside their customary business, and worldy vocations; and unite, in their respective places of Worship, or at their Homes, on that day, with the People of other States, in public and private Acts of Devotion and Gratitude to ALMIGHTY GOD.

I invite them also, in offering to Him thanksgiving for favors past and present, that they earnestly implore His protection and blessing for time to come:
That He will continue to us the fruits of the Earth; and make sure the reward of Labor;
That He will grant us Health, Prosperity and Peace:
That Dissension and Strife may depart from among us; that Concord and Love of Country may prevail:

That those in Authority may have His guidance; so disposing the hearts of the people, and ordering the State, that the happiness and peace, the power and abundance, with all the unnumbered blessings, which, through this Union, the GOD of our fathers gave to them, and to us, may suffer no diminution, through our follies or our crimes; but, safeguarded through His mercy, and multiplied by His favor, descend to our children's children.

THO: H. HICKS.

{1632 THE GREAT SEAL 1854
of
MARYLAND
CRESCITE ET MULTIPICAMINI}

BY THE GOVERNOR:
JAMES R. PARTRIDGE,
Secretary of State.

Given under my hand and the GREAT SEAL OF MARYLAND, hereunto affixed, at the Executive Chamber, in the City of Annapolis, this seventh day of November, in the year of Our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty, and of the Union and Independence of the United States, the eighty-fifth.
Murphy, Print. Balt.

Proclamation
Gov. of Maryland