Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 263

write by the N York Packet to acknowledge my Receipt of
your Favour dated the 9^th of Novem^r last & to assure you that
since the Decease of my old Friend & Correspondent the
honble M^r Calvert made it expedient for the Ld prry to
appoint him a Successor It gives me great Pleasure to find
His Ldp hath made such a Choice & I heartily congratulate
you thereupon. His Ldp having also in a Letter he favoured
me with the 8^th of Novem^r advised me of M^r Calverts Death,
of his having upon that Event appointed you Secretary of his
Province, & of his Intention that the Sums which the D
Secretary, Commissary Gen^l Agent & Judges of the Land
Office annually paid M^r Calvert should be from the time of
his Decease remitted to you I have been obliged in my answer
to that part of His Ldp's Letter to communicate to him the
Substance of a Conversation I had with M^r Dulany on the
Subject of your Commission to him. At the time His Ldps
Letter & yours were brought hither by the Post from N York
I happened to be in S^t Mary's County & on my Return home
was told that M^r Dulany had said he was superseded & should
no longer exercise the Office of Secretary. As you had signi-
fied to me by your Letter that at his Ldp's Desire you had
renewed the Deputation to M^r Dulany upon the same Terms
it was granted by M^r Calvert & had forwarded it to him by
the same Conveyance with my Letter I could hardly give any
Credit to the Report till upon my sending for M^r Dulany I
found it was not without Foundation, for he told me himself
that he could not act under the Commission or Power of
Attorney as he call'd it that you had sent him which he
observed was very different from the Commission he had
hitherto acted under, this of yours impowering or direct-
ing him to transact the Business of the Office in your Name &
to receive the Fees for your use whereas the Gentlemen who
have hitherto been appointed D Secretaries within the Pro-
vince have always transacted or had the Business of the Office
transacted in their own Names & been impowered to receive
the Fees to their own Use the Obligation they respectively
entered into for paying out of the Fees a certain Sum annually
to the Secretary in England having been a Matter of a private
Nature at least not mentioned in their Commissions, he inti-
mated too that altho the Persons acting here might be stiled
D Secretaries they had in fact been always considered as
Principals & were as such directed by sundry Acts of Assembly
to take certain Oaths, give Bonds &c before Admission &
subjected in Case of Neglect &c to Penalties which could not
be imposed on a Person residing out of the Province. The
Acts I suppose he alluded to are One made in the 3^d year of
Queen Ann entitled " An Act for Advancement of the Natives

Letter Bk. III