Introduction. xlix

absence of specie, no hard money would be available to pay the stamp dues.
By these and numerous other trade restrictions, and as a result of the coast
guard now hovering along her shores and interfering with trade, the country
'was well nigh ruined; and that there had now also come "the tremendous
Stamp Act and all its excessive penalties". The letter of instructions concluded
by saying that it was to be regretted that the Province had had no previous
opportunity to remonstrate against the Stamp Act, because the Governor, who
alone had the power to convene and prorogue the Assembly, had not called it
together for nearly two years (pp. 206-211).

On the day of adjournment, December 20, the Lower House appointed a
committee of five consisting of the Speaker, Murdock, Tilghman, Ringgold,
and Johnson, or any three or more of them, during the recess of the Assembly,
to correspond with Charles Garth, and lay before the house an account of
their correspondence (p. 257). But before the Assembly met again the Stamp
Act had been repealed by Parliament.

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTS

A Committee on Accounts headed by John Goldsborough, composed of five
members, to which a sixth was later added, was appointed by the Lower
House on November 2, 1765 (p. 137). Three days later the committee asked
if the house wished to have included in the Journal of Accounts, the claims of
the militia for provisions, wagons, and the quartering of soldiers in the late war.
The house voted in the affirmative and a committee of three headed by Edward
Tilghman was ordered to prepare and bring in such a bill (pp. 141, 149). The
Committee on Accounts was then ordered to receive no additional claims against
the public after November 14 (p. 145). On November 20 the house voted 25
to 20 to include among the expenses of the late war the balance due Bayard
Veasey on account of his expenses incident to "the Alarm from Lancaster
[Pennsylvania] and Baltimore County in Nov^r 1755" (p. 167).

On November 21, the house instructed the committee to report on the ex-
penses attending the sittings of the Assembly since the passing of the last
Journal (1756), and particularly the expenses of the "committee on rooms"
(p. 172). This last order was doubtless to show the rent which had been
paid for the rooms in private houses in which the Lower House sat.

In compliance with the orders of the Lower House the Committee on
Accounts presented its report on December 9 showing the costs attending the
sittings of the Assembly from February 1756 to November 16, 1765, the
latter being the day on which the present Journal of Accounts, now under
debate, was closed, and especially the expenses for the rent of the committee-
rooms used by the members of the Lower House; and found that the total
costs amounted to 3,950,482 pounds of tobacco and £305 17:0 current money.
The expenses incurred in the sittings of the Upper House were: due to the
members of the Upper House for attendance 448,826 pounds of tobacco and
£19:4:0 current money; to the present and late clerks of the Upper House
151,814 pounds of tobacco; to the present and late door-keepers 24,000 pounds
of tobacco, a total of 624,640 pounds of tobacco and £19: 4: 0. The expenses