xxviii Introduction.

announced. The Governor graciously acknowledged this address in a friendly
message (p. 145).

Committees of the Lower House were then appointed as follows: The Com-
mittee on Accounts, headed by Daniel Sulivane; the Committee on Aggriev-
ances and Courts of Justice by Edward Tilghman; the Committee to Inspect
Arms and Ammunition by William Adams (p. 140); the Committee on Elec-
tions and Privileges by Henry Hollyday (p. 141); the Committee to report on
Laws about to Expire by Charles Grahame; the Committee to Inquire by what
Laws the Proprietary Appropriated Certain Fines and Duties by Edward
Tilghman (p. 142); the Committee to Inspect the Public Offices and Records
by Robert Tyler (p. 18). Special committees were appointed from time to
time during the session to consider various other matters as they came up.

On November 3, 1766, "Several letters from Charles Garth Esq^r directed
to the Honourable Speaker of the House of Delegates ..... were communi-
cated by M^r Speaker, and were severally read (p. 139). As these letters from
Garth, who had been appointed by the Assembly as its agent to help secure the
repeal of the Stamp Act, are not entered in the Journal of the house there is
some uncertainty as to whether they are identical with the two lengthy letters
from Garth on the repeal of the act, dated London, February 26, 1766, and
March 5, 1766, respectively, which were addressed to "Messes, Tilghman &
Murdock & Ringgold", the members of the Lower House committee, appointed
to correspond with Garth at the November—December, 1765, session (Arch.
Md. LIX, 257), and again at the May, 1766, session (p. 63). These two
letters from Garth, which are now in the Library of the Maryland Historical
Society, have been printed in the Maryland Historical Magazine VI, 1911,
pp. 282-305), and are discussed elsewhere in this Introduction (p. Iv). It
will be noted that they are addressed to the members of the Lower House
committee, while the letters referred to in the journal of this session are
recorded as having been directed to the Speaker. Later in the session, on
December 3, the Lower House added John Hall to the committee of three
which had been appointed in 1765 to correspond with Garth during the recess
of the Assembly, and the committee was directed to bring before the house
the draft of an answer to Garth, to be sent to him by the house in the name
of the Speaker (pp. 203, 218). This answer, when presented, was formally
approved by the house, but is not to be found recorded in its journal.

The most pressing matter before the November-December, 1766, session,
was, in the minds of the public, the necessity for making provision for the
payment of the public debt, which had now been piling up for a period of ten
years, owing to the failure of the houses to agree upon a Journal of Accounts,
because of the long standing dispute between the two houses as to whether
certain items, and more especially the salary of the Clerk of the Upper House,
were to be paid by the Proprietary or by the public. The public debt had now
reached such large proportions, and the public creditors had become so ag-
gressively insistent, that the two houses at this session agreed to refer the
dispute about the payment of the Clerk's salary to the Crown for arbitration,
and to pass at once an act, with this item omitted, providing for the immediate