124 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1761-1769.

Lib. J. R.
& U. S.

His Excellency was pleased to lay before this Board the
following Petition from Numbers of the Inhabitants of Fred-
erick County.
To His Excellency Horatio Sharpe Esq^r Governor and
Commander in Chief in and over the Province of Maryland.
The Petition of the Subscribing Inhabitants of Frederick
County.

Most humbly Sheweth
That the present Scarcity of Money so sensibly felt through-
out the whole Province is no where so fatal in its Consequences
or pressed down with heavier Aggravation of Suffering, than
within the Precincts of this County wherein the Numbers of
the Public Creditors and the amount of their respective just
Demands are well known far to exceed the Proportion of other
Counties whose Properties they have defended in Attempting
to secure their own and by keeping the Savage Enemy at a Dis-
tance, supported the Barrier, to the irreparable Loss of many
poor Families among them whose Fathers, Brothers, Wives,
and Children fell under the Gun or the Tomahawk, and by re-
ceiving the Bloody Stroke themselves averted it from those
who shook at a Distance and were ready to fly, they knew not
whether upon a bare Surmize of a remote Danger whereof
they could not possibly form the least adequate. Idea.
That most of the Survivors of such distressed Families their
Children and Reliques are Inhabitants of this County where
the Remembrance of their Losses the Ruin of their Fortunes,
and the want of Payment of their Just Demands, upon the
public for Services wherein their Lives, their Substance their
all were imbarked, have rendered them Objects of the Highest
Compassion, and hold them forth to View as worthy the Care
and Attendance of the Public, as being the most useful as well
as most distressed of its Members.
That their hopes of Relief were vastly raised by your Ex-
cellency's Speech to both Houses on the Opening the Session
the 26^th of September last wherein your own benevolent Mind
as well as your intimate knowledge of and Concern for the
Welfare of the Province so strongly shine out, Hopes founded
on the Strongest Foundation, a Provincial Fund established to
be supported by easy and long experienced Methods of Taxa-
tion to be turned by way of Bills of Credit into common Circu-
lation, for the more easy Discharge of Public and Private
Contracts and by getting into the hands of Public Sufferers
bring some tho' very partial Recompence of their long felt dis-
tresses, it being evident that such as are paid their original