The Upper House. 515

fit to put upon them whereby a Lower House would become nothing
other than a bare name
We desire nothing else than that the Bills now in Question grate-
ful to the Government and People should go Hand in Hand: Let us
be assured of the one, the other shall immediately be dispatcht and if
after this the Country should be deprived of the Useful Laws now in
the Upper House and of the Fund for its defence, we can (we think)

U. H. J.
Calvert
Paper
No. 735

very safely trust it to impartial and disinterested Men to Judge at
whose Door the Inconveniences that may happen must lie
Altho it be most certainly our Duty to do all that's in Our Power
for the Interest of Our Constituents, yet We cannot think that Duty
peculiar to us alone, for as the Welfare of the People is the end of all
Government it must necessarily be incumbent on every Branch of the
Legislature Jointly to pursue that end, and not to go to bargaining
with one another for what is their undoubted Right; But since that
seems to be the case we must rather chuse to go without part of that
Right for a time than buy it at so high a Price as would make the
House of Delegates for ever Dependant on his Lordships Council
In this unhappy Situation therefore We most earnestly desire
your Excellency's favourable Interposition, to prevail with the Upper
House to proceed with us in the usual manner by sending us Back
Our Reviving and Re-enacting Bills with their former Duration, or
if that cannot be effected that you will be pleased to dismiss us in
such manner as Your Excellency shall think fit
Signed on Behalf and by Order of the House
Philip Hammond, Speaker

p. 107

Gentlemen of the Lower House of Assembly
I have considered your Address delivered to me Yesterday by
M^r Speaker with all the Carefulness and Attention that I am capable
of and must candidly own to you that it seems to me rather composed
in a specious manner to throw some Blame on the Upper House and
Myself, in relation to the Dispute between the two Houses, than to
place the said Dispute in an Exact Light, as it stands in the several
Messages that passed on the Subject.
For to avoid all unnecessary Words, the sole Point in dispute
appears by the said Messages to be plainly this, whether you did
Right in keeping Back A Bill, which had been Agreed on by the
Conferees of both Houses and approved of by each House, in order
to Oblige the Upper House to pass Your Bills on their Table in
what manner you pleased

The Upper House insists upon it that you did not Act right, &
that such a Proceeding has a plain Tendency to render the Upper
House not only an useless but a ridiculous Branch of Legislature,

June 5