REVENUE OFFICERS: PROVINCIAL 63

2. THE NAVAL OFFICERS.

Originally the Secretary, residing at St. Mary's, was sole Naval
Officer, and from as early as December, 1671, he deputed the
successive sheriffs at the head of the bay and in Somerset County
to act for him in those remote localities. ⁸ It is not clear that
he took any commission on the duties collected, but he did enjoy
certain fees established by acts of April, 1650, and April, 1662. ⁹

In June, 1676, Baltimore appointed three separate Naval
Officers and settled these fees upon them. ¹⁰ Their districts were
to be Patuxent, embracing the whole of Chesapeake Bay from
Point, Lookout on the Western around to, but not including,
Nanticoke River on the Eastern Shore; North Potomac, com-
prising the Maryland side of that river above its mouth at Point
Lookout; and Pocomoke, which included the Pocomoke, Wi-
comico, and Nanticoke Rivers and the Atlantic coast, all at the
southern end of the Eastern Shore. ¹¹

Until the Protestant Revolution, as all duties were proprietary
in nature, there was no felt need for provincial, as distinguished
from proprietary Naval Officers. On September 4, 1689, how-
ever, the Convention of Freemen, having destroyed His Lordship's

sion of five p ct on all Money pd them by the Naval Officers. When many
Negroe Ships arrived these offices were valuable but at present they are incon-
siderable. " He valued them together at £ 80 in 1761, and he rated the Eastern
office at £ 20 to £ 30 in 1766 (Horatio Sharpe to Cecilius Calvert, Oct. 20, 1755;
Sharpe to Board of Trade, Dec. 21, 1761; Sharpe to Lord Baltimore, Oct. 22,
1766, Ibid., VI, 296; XXXII, 27; XIV, 334). An anonymous estimate of about
1745 values the two Treasurerships together at £250 sterling (Massachusetts
Historical Society, Collections, ser. I, vol. VII [1801], 203).

⁸ Archives, V, 104, 111, 113, 121. At this time Charles Calvert was both
Governor and Secretary.

⁹ Ibid., I, 290, 454; VIII, 457.

¹⁰ Ibid., VIII, 386, 438, 451, 457. The Secretary was now given, instead of the
naval fees, the ordinary license fines and a saddle on attorneys in the provincial
court (Ibid,, XV, 79). The Protestant Associators argued, in their articles against
Lord Baltimore's deputies in 1690, that Naval Officers' fees were " not only with-
out, but directly against the lawes of this Province therein made and provided... "
(Ibid., VIII, 217). They had indeed been legally settled on the Secretary, but
as they were transferred to the Naval Officers in 1676 no provision was made
for them in the general fee act of that year, which did not include the fees of
these officers. In 1692 the grasping crown Secretary. Sir Thomas Lawrence, tried
to obtain these fees on the ground that, like the ordinary license fines, they were
an ancient perquisite of his office.

¹¹ Apparently the original incumbents were Lt. Col. Henry Lowe, Sr., Col.
William Digges, and Col. William Stevens for the three districts respectively
(Ibid., XVII, 327, 401)- Proprietary Naval Officers were thereafter
by the Agent and Receiver General (Ibid., VIII, 66)..