412 Correspondence of Governor Sharpe.

Letter Bk. V

pared except with regard to some Debts which cannot be got
in at present to close his Accounts & to submit them & his
Vouchers to our Examination for a final Settlement & we
have agreed to proceed on & go thro what remains to be
adjusted the Beginning of September when M^r Dulany will
return from Baltimore County where he passes the Summer
& M^r Jordan be more at leisure than at present to attend that
Business, the Books & Papers relative to his Ldp's Revenue
now in the hands of his Agent will then too be removed into
the Repositary or Office which is now finished. On my shew-
ing the Gentlemen of the Council who reside here the Answer
you with His Lordships Approbation returned to the Applica-
tion that Mess^rs Stewart & Sedgley made for a Dissent to the
Quarantine Act they expressed the greatest Satisfaction &
think my Communicating those Letters to the Assembly at
their next Meeting will have a Tendancy to make Them
entertain grateful Sentiments & just Notions of His Lordships
Attention to the Welfare of the Province & at the same time
lessen in some measure the Weight & Influence of M^r
Ringgold who hath always been in the Opposition for he cer-
tainly lays himself very open by his manner of writing about
the Act several of his Allegations being contrary to Truth &
his whole Letter extremely futile. That the Distempers the
Importation & spreading of which the Act is calculated to
prevent have been frequently brought into this & many other
Places in the Province & that Scores of People have been
destroyed here by the Jail Fever first communicated by Ser-
vants from on board crowded infectious Ships is notorious &
there is the greatest reason to believe that by that Distemper
communicated last Fall to M^rs Blake's Family in Queen Annes
County thro a Convict imported from Bristol the Lady herself
& more than 20 Negroes died in the space of about two
Months, how absurd then was M^r Ringgolds proposed
Amendment to the Title of the Bill (which however I do not
understand he ever made at least in publick) for an Act to
prevent the Depopulation of Maryland would not have been
a very improper Title to the Act he would have called " a Bill
to prevent the Peopling of a Young Country" May there not
be a continual Influx of People into the Province without
bringing more in a Vessel than she can well contain, or have
we no Servants imported in Vessels that belong to other
Merchants than the two Contractors who have thought fit on
this Occasion to bestir themselves, the Truth is that many
Servants are imported annually from different parts of Eng-
land Scotland & Ireland but the Masters do not often receive
more on board than can be conveniently accommodated
while those Contractors who have only a certain Number