REVENUE OFFICERS: PROVINCIAL 67

would perform all duties of the office and account to his principal
annually, retaining a fourth or a third of the profits. ²⁶ Long
tenure was the rule, and there are four cases of succession from
father to son.

3. THE SHERIFFS.

Just as the Naval Officers collected duties payable at the ports,
so the sheriffs, first appointed in 1637/8, collected taxes and fees
payable within the province. ²⁷ As the sheriff was, moreover, the
Governor's representative within his own county, he was ap-
pointed or reappointed by the chief executive every year, but
not without some interference by the Assembly and attempted
interference by the Lower. House.

On three occasions the delegates sought to take appointment
of sheriffs out of the Governor's hands altogether, against the
letter of His Lordship's charter. ²⁸ There were also efforts to limit
the Governor's choice. An act of May, 1661, and another of the
following spring, required appointment from a list of three
nominees presented by each county court. However in May, 1669,
the Upper House refused to concur in reviving the latter act,
because " the appointing Sheriffs is part of my Lord's royal juris-

sterling a year (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, ser. I, vol. VII
[1801], 202). Another list of offices and their values, in 1754, rates Annapolis,
and probably the other Naval Offices, too low and omits Pocomoke. It quotes
the revenues in currency, at twenty-five to fifty percent discount from sterling, as
follows: Patuxent, £ 174. 15. 7 1/2; North Potomac, £ 272. 14. 1; Annapolis, £ 318 12 4;
Oxford, £240. 14. 11/2 (Portfolio No. 3, folder 30, Md. Hall of Records). Gov.
Sharpe rated the Naval Offices in 1761 at from £ 50 to £ 150 sterling a year. In
1755 Col. Tasker declared that the office at Annapolis brought in £ 200 sterling
clear of the deputy's salary. But Benjamin Young complained the following year
that his Naval Office of Pocomoke, supposed to be worth £80 to £ 100 sterling,
actually brought him in hardly £40. He lived in Baltimore County and acted
wholly by deputy. Sharpe in 1766 rated the annual value of Pocomoke at £ 50
sterling. (Horatio Sharpe to Board of Trade, Dec. 21, 1761; Sharpe to Cecilius
Calvert, March 12, 1755; Benjamin Young to Lord Baltimore, July 28, 1756;
Sharpe to Lord Baltimore. Oct. 22, 1766, Archives, XXXII, 27; VI, 132; Calvert
Paper No. 1197, Md. Historical Society; Archives, XIV, 334).

²⁶ Permission to act by deputy might be had from Lord Baltimore or, in cases
covered by His Lordship's instructions, from the Governor (cf. Lords Baltimore
and Guilford to Thomas Macnemara, Feb. 4, 1717/18, Ibid., XXXIII, 170). On
the deputy's terms see Chancery Record, liber 10, folio 160 (Md. Land Office)
and Arnold Elzey, Jr. to John Leeds, Nov. 25, 1766 (Bozman Papers, I, art.
55, LC).

²⁷ The original appointees were James Baldridge for St. Mary's County and
John Langford for the Isle of Kent, Jan. 29 and Feb. 9, 1637/8 (Archives, III
61, 63).

²⁸ These attempts occurred in March, 1638/9, August, 1642, and October 1724
(Ibid., 1, 54, 148; XXXV, 41, 57).