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L. H. J.
Liber No. 47
November 16
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Post-Meridiem.
The House met according to Adjournment.
Doctor Carroll, from the Committee of Laws, delivers to Mr.
Speaker the following ingrossed Address, viz.
To his Excellency Horatio Sharpe, Esq; Governor and Com-
mander in Chief in and over the Province of Maryland.
The humble Address of the House of Delegates.
May it please your Excellency,
In Answer to your Excellency's Message, with the Earl of Hol-
dernesse's Letter, we assure your Excellency we have that due Sense
of our most gracious Sovereign's paternal Tenderness for, and Care
of, all his Subjects, which Duty and Gratitude inspire, and are
sufficiently apprehensive of the great Danger of suffering a foreign
Power to encroach upon any Part of his Majesty's Dominions:
We are determined resolutely to repel, in the best Manner we can,
all hostile Invasions of this Province, by any foreign Power; and
whenever the Circumstances of our neighbouring Colonies may
require, or need our Assistance, we shall chearfully contribute as
far as we are able, towards defending them against the Attacks of
their Enemies: But as there does not appear, at present, to be any
pressing Occasion for imposing a Tax upon the People for these
Purposes, we hope, that our Unwillingness to do it at this Time,
will be rather ascribed to the real Motive of our Conduct, a prudent
Care of, and Regard to, the Interests of our Constituents, than any
Disinclination to the Service recommended.
On your recommending the Revival of the Act, for Arms and
Ammunition, we must (tho' with Reluctance), observe to your
Excellency, that under Colour of an Act of Assembly, made in the
Year Seventeen Hundred and Four, when this Province was under
the immediate Protection of the Crown, the Sum of Twelve Pence
per Hogshead on all Tobacco, exported out of this Province, has
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p. 359
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been and still is, collected and paid to the Lord Proprietary; Three
Pence of which Twelve Pence per Hogshead, when that Act was in
Force, was, by the Instructions of her most gracious Majesty Queen
Anne to her Governor here, applied towards a Supply of Arms and
Ammunition; and altho' it is the Sense of this House, that the above-
mentioned Act could not continue longer than during the Time the
Government of this Province was in the Crown, and therefore, as
they conceive, cannot now be in Force, yet it is thought but just and
reasonable, while that Duty is collected, that Three Pence, Part
thereof, should be applied, as during the Continuance of the above-
mentioned Act, to a Supply for Arms and Ammunition, and for this
Reason we cannot, consistently with our Duty, and the Trust re-
posed in us by our Constituents, consent to a Revival of that Act.
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