502 Assembly Proceedings, April 23-June 5, 1740.

II. H. J.
Calvert
Paper

No. 735

By the Upper House of Assembly 2^d June 1740
Gentlemen
Whether what you have insisted, does or does not tend to render
any Branch of the Legislature, that should comply with it, useless
or ridiculous, we must appeal to every impartial Person, who will
read the state of our present dispute in our Message of the 31^st of
May, where it cannot be said to be misrepresented; nor can we
recollect any Conduct of this House at any Time parallel to Yours
on this occasion
Whoever reads your former Messages, must conclude you differed
with us, either because we had altered the usual Duration of your
Bills on Our Table; or because we would not acquaint you, what
alteration (if any) we intended to make: But by your Message of
Saturday last, you seem to have found out, that you had mistaken
the Cause of our Quarrel, for by that Message you tell Us, your
Complaint is, " That we have not read Your Bills the second time "
If so, pray what occasion was there for your long Reasoning, and
harsh Conclusions on a Fact (viz. our Alteration of the Continuance
of your Bills) which had not happened. And why have you so
hastily taken for Granted, without any Information from your
House that We should do it, as by Argumentations on your own
Suspitions and Apprehensions, to put the Country to an Expence of
near One hundred Thousand Pounds of Tobacco ? But now truly
it comes out, that you are not Angry with us, for having made or
intended to make any Alteration in the Duration of the Bills, but
only, Because we have not read the Bills a second time, and sent
them to you with the former Duration " If we are blameable in

p. 94

this particular, We doubt not but you will on a very little Recollec-
tion be so candid as to acknowledge such an Objection lies much
stronger against your selves; If we have been faulty for not Reading
a second time and sending to you Bills to which this House has in
no Shape hitherto agreed, how will you be excused, for not reading
the second time (for ought We know) and not sending up to Us a
Bill, on every part of which the Two Houses by their Conferees
have signified their Concurrence A Bill which is of so great Im-
portance as to make some better Provision for Defence of the Prov-
ince in these Dangerous Times of War, and a Bill which together
with another Bill employed us the first four Weeks of Our Meeting,
at the expence of near 3Ooooo£ of Tobacco to the Country, before
the two Houses could agree on the Heads, and which we were always
understood and intended to be dispatched in the first place, and to
accompany each other; But you have now taken up near Ten days,
and at iooooo£ of Tobacco Expence to the Country in disputing
whether you should send up one of those Bills.
It is your Behaviour Gentlemen, in keeping back this Bill under
all these Circumstances that alarmed Us and put us upon our Guard