DULANY, DANIEL

born June 28, 1722, Annapolis, Md. died March 17, 1797, Baltimore, Md., U.S. American lawyer who was an influential political figure in the period just before the War of Independence. The son of the Maryland official of the same name, Daniel Dulany was educated in England and became a lawyer after returning to Maryland. He was a member of the Maryland legislative assembly from 1751 to 1754, and he was appointed to the Governor's Council in 1757 in recognition of his support for the colony's proprietary government. In the following years he held other high offices and also became known as one of the best lawyers in the American Colonies. Though his sympathies were those of a loyal British subject, Dulany was critical of some policies of the British government, and, during the crisis over the Stamp Act of 1765, he wrote Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies (1765), which was the most influential pamphlet that appeared in opposition to the Stamp Act. He opposed revolutionary action against British rule, however, and, during the American War of Independence, he remained a Loyalist, being deprived of his property in 1781 on account of this. born 1685, County Queens, Ireland died Dec. 5, 1753, Annapolis, Md. Irish-American colonial lawyer, landowner, and public official. Daniel Dulany went to Maryland in 1703, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1709. He soon became prominent and wealthy from his legal practice. A year after Dulany moved to Annapolis, he was elected to represent the town in the Maryland Assembly. At first, Dulany became a leader of the legislative faction that opposed proprietorial authority in the colony, and he argued that the citizens of Maryland were entitled to the benefits of all English legal statutes. During the next decade, however, Dulany crossed over to support the proprietorial faction and was rewarded with successively higher offices in the colony. In 1742 he became a member of the Governor's Council, where he took a leading role in securing the passage in 1747 of a tobacco inspection law that considerably enhanced the quality of the colony's tobacco crop.