Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 181

His Ldp or Yourself. You may remember what I wrote you
the 5^th of July 1755 with regard to this Matter but I have
spoke to M^r Tasker again & desired him to send you all such
Papers as may serve to shew how that part of M^r Sam^l Hide's
Estate which was sold to satisfy the Lord Proprietarys Debt
was disposed of. One of the inclosed Bills of Excha is in
Return for that of Magruder's which was protested, the small
one is also for Your Use. I shall take an early opportunity to
write to you again after my arrival at Fort Frederick for

which Place I propose to set off the 18^th Inst. in order to agree
with Sr I S^t Clalr about the Disposal of the Soldiers that are

at present in Garrison at Fort Cumberland & Fort Frederick.
I have reason to believe that Brigadier Forbes has impowered
S^r John to pay off the Arrears that are due to them, & to take
them into His Majestys Service as Rangers during the Expe-
dition rather than that they should be disbanded just at the
opening of the Campaign, but if we find that the Virginians
cannot possibly compleat their Numbers we may probably
turn as many of the Men as are willing over to the Virginians
who give by way of Bounty Money to every Recruit more
than the Arrears of Pay that are due to any of our Soldiers
amount to, but of this I shall be able to send you better
Advice in about a Fortnight.

14^th of May 1758.
Sir
It was not till yesterday Morning that I gave over all hopes
of obtaining some Supplies from our Assembly for the Sup-
port of a Number of Men to act under your Command during
the ensuing Campaign, but the Resolutions which they then
came to left me not the least Room to hope that the two
Houses would come to any Agreement afterwards & I found
myself obliged by the Importunity of the Gentlemen of the
Lower House to put an End to the Session the same Day.
They had sent me a Message two Days before acquainting
me that no Business was before them & desiring to be pro-
rogued, but as I could not think of complying with their Re-
quest before every means had been tried to bring the two
Houses to some Agreement I gave them such an Answer as
prevailed on them to confer together being in hopes that the
Passage of some Bill or other might be brought about by a
Conference altho they could not convince each other of the
Reasonableness of the Objections or Propositions they respec-
tively made by Messages. On Friday last the Conferees
met but as the Gentlemen of the Lower House had instructed