The Lower House. 53

Instructions you mention relating to Cut Gold or if that Cannot be
found to give you as full an Information as possible of the Contents
of the said Instruction as well as the Date thereof and the time when
he received it from his Lordship.
Sam Ogle

M^r Mathews from the Committee of Aggrievances &c. Delivers
the following Report

By the Committee of Aggreivances and Courts of Justice May 12^th
1737
Your Committee having had Divers Informations of the Exactions
and Oppressions Committed by some of the farmers and receivers of
His Lordships Quit Rents have procured a Sight of the Directions
given by the former Agent and also His Lordship the Lord Pro-
prietary his Instructions bearing date at London the 15^th December
1735 by which they find that by the first the farmers and receivers
were Informed that the Said Agent would receive from them whole
Gold at 3/1 1 and Cut Gold at 3/6 a penny weight and Silver at 5^s
p ounce and that by his Lordships aforesaid Instructions he Directs
his Agent to take no foreign Gold at above. £3 :16 :9 and silver at 5 S
p ounce from which your Committee Conceives his Lordship is
willing to accept of those. Kinds of money at those rates and never
Intended they should be Taken from his Tennants at a less Value.
Yet your Committee have it before them by the Testimony of
Witnesses that M^r Philip Thomas one of the farmers and receivers for
Ann Arundell County has received 4/6 Cut Gold for 2 s sterling
due from a Certain Sarah Stevens and has not from any person who
has appeared before your Committee who hath paid him Cut Gold
taken at a less than one hundred p Cent and in one Instance where
he had Destrained a Negro would not take Cut or even whole Gold
alltho Offered to him but Insisted on Sterling mony and by means
thereof the said Negro was Kept in Custody a Day or two Longer
and thereby the person to whom the Negro Belonged forced to Pay
20 p Day besides the Other fees Charged to and paid by the master
of the said Negro and that he has been so far from accepting Spanish
Silver at the rate by his Lordship Directed founded upon the Value
the same mony and whole and Cut Gold Bear in London that he has
refused to accept such mony Viz.
Spanish Silver at less then one hundred p Cent Difference and has
also taken Pistoles altho weighing 235 10 at no more than 14 for 155
and some few odd pence
Your Committee further find that by Direction in writing from
Mess^rs Docter Samuel Chew and John Galloway who alledge them-
selves farmers under M^r Philip Thomas for Baltemore County said
to the person who Collects the rents there Ordered not to take

L. H. J.

Lib. No. 45