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Parties attend this Board with their Evidences on the twenti-
eth Day of October next; and It is likewise ordered that the
Attorney General stay Prosecution on the Information exhib-
ited in Talbot County Court, and which is now depending in
the Provincial Court against the said Matthew Cohune, until
further Order.
His Excellency having been pleased to lay before this
Board an humble Address to him from the Lower house of
Assembly presented setting forth "That as hearing the Com-
" plaint of those they represented and examining into the
" Nature of any Oppression they may labour under was One
" of the most essential Parts of the Great Trust committed to
" them, they begged Leave to acquaint his Excellency that in
" Execution of that Trust they found by the Information as
" well as Testimony of several Persons had under Examination
" before them; that Mr Philip Thomas a Farmer of his Lord-
" ships Quit Rents had grievously oppressed many of his
"faithful Tenants, and contrary to his Lordships known dis-
position in a most arbitrary and unwarrantable manner
" exacted and extorted from them in Discharge of their Quit
" Rents several sums of foreign Gold and Silver at a Rate far
"less than is declared their Sterling Value by his Lordships
" Instruction of the fifteenth Day of December seventeen
"hundred thirty and five, and in open Contempt of his Lord-
" ships Direction by the said Instruction
" It likewise appeared that Mr Gilbert Crockett a Receiver
" under the said Philip Thomas had not only in the like op-
pressive arbitrary and contemptuous manner committed
" Crimes of the like Nature, but also exacted and extorted
"from several of his Lordships Tenants sundry sums of Money
" or Tobacco as fees due to himself which they conceived not to
" be warranted by any Law or Custom; that they viewed these
Abuses with the utmost Abhorrence as they were committed
under an Administration that never countenanced the least
Oppression, and were such as might tend to alienate the
minds of his Lordships Tenants from his Dominion and Govern-
ment, & thought in Justice to the Country the Persons commit-
ting such Abuses ought to be treated in such manner as might
effectually discountenance all Oppressions of the like kind
for the future, and to that End they begged Leave to entreat
his Excellency to direct that the said Philip Thomas and
Gilbert Crockett might be prosecuted according to Law for
their Oppressions and Exactions aforesaid, and in Order more
fully to open the Scene of their Behaviour to lay before his
Excellency a Copy of the Report of the Committee of Aggriev-
ances concurred to by that House with the Depositions annext,
not doubting but his Excys Iustice and Regard for the well
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Lib. M.
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