The Lower House. 347

Coll^o Tilghman from the Upper House delivers M^r Speaker
the following Message viz :

By the Upper House of Assembly

Octob^r the 25^th 1725
Gentlemen.
In answer to Your Message of the 23^d Instant by M^r
Walter Smith, and M^r Ephraim Augustine Herman, we are
of Opinion that the Method we have taken of Signifying our
Assent to the Engrost bills is not so Intirely new as you seem
to think for if you please to Consult the Journals of Both
Houses of Assembly Since the Year 1715, You will find the
same method has been us'd since that time only with this
Difference that as the Assent us'd to be Signified by a Verbal
Message we have now done it in Writing by an Endorsment
upon the originall Bill which we were Induced to do by your
desiring in Your first Message Relating to this Affair that
our Assent to those Bills might appear to your House in the
same manner that the Assent of Your House does to ours,
and this we take to be most Effectually Comply'd with by
that Method. We are very far from Desiring to Enter into
Unnecessary debates with Your House, but Cannot conceive
why you should Insist upon altering the present practice Re-
lating to the Engrost Bills because for the Reasons we gave
you in our former Message it appears to be most Conducive
to the Dispatch of the publick Business, and we believe it to
be most Agreeable to the Parliamentary Practice in Great
Britain. We desire you would be pleas'd to Consider that
you Mistake the Constitution of our Legislature when you
tell us that his Honour the Governor presides in our House
for he is not a Member of it, nor does he sett amongst us
unless occasionally as he thinks fitt for perusing such Bills
and petitions as are lodged in this House, and we having
Communicated to him the Message of Your House Relating
to this Affair, he has been pleas'd to tell us that Unless the
Engrost Bills are lodg'd here or in some Convenient place,
where he may have Recourse to them, he Cannot possibly be
prepared to Assent to them at the Conclusion of the Sessions,

L. H. J.

but that then both Houses must wait till he Can peruse them.
Besides what has been already Offered, it appears to be most
Argeeable to Reason, that as Your House have in Possession
the Originall Bills with our Assent thereon so the Engrost
Bills should Remain in our House, which will give Each
house the Oppertunity of perusing and Considering them
during the whole Sessions whereby some Mistakes that might

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