REVENUE OFFICERS: ROYAL 93

coterminous with the Naval Officer districts previously described.
After Plater's death in 1707 the Governor and Council deputed
Colonel John Rousby, who now married Plater's widow, to succeed
him also for the time being as Receiver. George Muschamp, who
in 1693/4 had succeeded Blakiston, was in 1709 succeeded by
John Dansey. ³

At their first appointment William and Mary had given them
each a salary of £100 sterling out of the two crown revenues
they were to receive. ⁴ But the twelve pence had all been appro-
priated by act of Assembly, three pence for arms and nine for
the Governor's salary; and in March, 1694/5, those fines and for-
feitures levied in Provincial Court were given to the Clerk of the
Council. All that was left were the remaining fines and for-
feitures, which in Patuxent district came to less than half Plater's
salary and in Muschamp's two districts amounted to barely £ 15
a year. ⁵ In September, 1696, these Receivers got the Upper House
to intercede with the delegates, asking some further provision
for their payment, and in June of 1703 both prayed the Council
for allowance out of the three pence for arms. ⁶ Finally, sometime
the following year, by carrying an appeal to the Treasury, they
obtained arrears out of the Queen's part of a sugar prize lately
brought in. ⁷

Meanwhile, in 1703, George Muschamp had obtained from the
Treasury Lords a raise of £ 20 and leave to draw his salary from

Tench " Their Majesties' Treasurer and Receiver General, " but he was now super-
seded on arrival of these commissions for Plater and Blakiston (Archives. VIII.
352).

³ Ibid., XXV, 235; Calendar of Treasury Books, X, part 3, 1191; Archives,
XXVII, 396; XXX, 47. As the Receiver of North Potomac and Pocomoke always
resided in the former district, he usually employed the Naval Officer of Pocomoke
as his deputy (cf. Ibid., XXIII, 275). After establishment of the ports of Anna-
polis and Oxford in 1694 the Receiver of Patuxent kept a deputy at each (Blath-
wayte Papers, Huntington Library).

⁴ See appointments and instructions (Archives, XXIII, 192-95, XX, 504-07)
and the correspondence of Jan., 1691/2, in the Blathwayte Papers, Huntington
Library. From June, 1692, to October, 1694, the Receivers also took the four
pence per gallon on liquors imported, thereafter received by the Public Treasurers.
They had no commission on any of these funds.

⁵ See Treasury Lords to William Blathwayte, Jan. 22, 1702/3, and John
Seymour to Board of Trade, June 10, 1707 (Calendar of Treasury Books, XVIII,
115; Public Record Office, Colonial Office, 5: 716, part 2, LC). Each Receiver had
also a Collectorship or a Naval Office to eke out his income.

⁶ Archives, XIX, 452, XXV, 161. Nothing came of either appeal.

⁷ Ibid., XXV, 168; Calendar of Treasury Books, XIX, 130, 137, 197. Their
petition was probably dated in October, 1703. Blathwayte recommended granting
it Feb. 15, 1703/4.