Preface. xi

both the important committees, that of laws, and that of aggrievances,
and was on no occasion made the bearer of a message to the Upper
House. It probably did not suit his temper to stand at the bar of that
house in which he had once occupied a seat. The differences between
the two houses began almost immediately. In 1723, the appropriation
for the customary allowances to the Councillors for their services was
refused by the Lower House, and the ensuing debates between the two
houses were frequently marred by aspersions cast by the one upon the
intelligence, motives and sincerity of the other. At the session in
March, 1725/6, Bordley complained that he had been accused of having
needlessly prolonged the previous session. During the next session,
that in July, 1726, he was absent; and while the two houses failed to
agree upon a tobacco bill, the communications between them, upon this
occasion, were free from discourtesy.

It should be added that Thomas Bordley was instrumental in secur-
ing the establishment of a printing press at Annapolis by William
Parks, in 1726, and he was the editor of the volume printed by order
of the Lower House in 1725, by Andrew Bradford, in Philadelphia,
containing the charter of Maryland, and the debates that had occurred
concerning the government and judicature. In the preface the impor-
tance of a knowledge of the constitution of the country was urged.-and
the suggestion made that even part of the Legislature seemed to have
doubts concerning it.

The records belonging to the State for the period covered by this
volume are very defective, some of the manuscripts being so decayed
that they cannot be handled without further damage, and what remains
of them is in many places illegible. Fortunately it has been possible to
supply what was lacking from the Maryland Historical Society's col-
lection of Calvert papers, which contains copies of the journals, made
at the time, for the information of the Lord Proprietary, and which are
often of earlier date than the copies belonging to the State. The Upper
House Journal for the session in 1724 is taken from a copy in the State
collection (the only one in existence), which was made in 1738, a
fact disclosed by the accidental insertion, by the copyist, of that date
among the Proceedings.