Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 337

or that to M^r Hamersley mentioned every thing worthy Notice
that at present occurs to Me I will not intrude longer on your
Ldps Time than just to assure you that I remain with the
utmost Respect & Gratitude
Your Ldps faithful & devoted Serv^t

[Sharpe to Hamersley.]

Copy of 7^th Letter to M^r Hamersley. Dated Annapolis the
22^d Oct^r 1766.
D^r S^r
I embrace an Opportunity that now offers by a Ship bound
hence for London to acknowledge my Receipt of the Letter
you were pleased to favour me with the 7^th of Aug^st last & of
His Ldps Instruction that was inclosed which is luckily come
to hand before the Meeting of the Assembly. As it might be
a means of preventing a Step that would have been against
the Sentiments of the Upper House I am very much obliged
to you for losing no Time in transmitting to Me His Ldps
Instruction which I shall lay before the Upper House before
the Affair of Ordinary Lycences can be again brought on the
Carpet, & at the same time will communicate to them His
Ldps Sentiments expressed in the Conclusion of Your Letter.
As I many years ago sent M^r Calvert a State shewing in what
manner, under what Acts & by what Authority Ordinary
Lycences had been granted here from the first Settlement of
the Country till within these few years & to what use the
Fines thereon arising had been from time to time appropri-
ated & presume he laid that also before you at the time he
applied to you to prepare the Restraining Instruction you
mention, I shall not trouble you with a Narrative thereof here
but only observe that whatever Arguments drawn from Pre-
cedents the Upper House urged in support of His Ldps or
his Secretary's Claim to the Fees for granting Lycences in
the Disputes between the two Houses which you allude to,
they never apprehended the Law would support it & were
sensible neither His Ldp nor his Secretary would be the better
for their Claim unless an Act of Assembly could be obtained
in favour of it which the Assemblies for almost these forty
years have peremptorily refused. His Ldp could doubtless
as long as he pleased refuse to pass any Law for restraining
Ordinaries otherwise than on his own Terms & the Want of
such a Law would have been attended with Inconveniencies
to the Province, but unless the Lawyers in England could
point out how the Fines could be recovered as well as give an
opinion that the sole Right of granting such Lycences was in
His Ldp I do not see how such nude Right could be of any

Letter Bk. IV