Letter of Transmittal. xv

part a compilation based on numerous older separate acts, was limited to
five years. Incidentally it may be said that the " Tobacco Law " in certain
particulars did not meet with the Proprietary's approval, especially in its regu-
lation of the fees of public officers, and that at one time he considered vetoing it.

It may be well to state here that the device so often employed by the Assembly
to limit the operation of laws passed by it (the usual period was three years),
was in part due to their fear of imposing a law upon the Province to the re-
peal of which, should it prove onerous, the Proprietary might dissent, and also
to their desire to pass laws which it was feared that the Proprietary might
dissent to if they were passed as " perpetual laws," as acts unlimited in time
were styled. The Acts passed at this session are too numerous to discuss in
detail. Most of the laws of a general character were enacted to be in force for
a limited period, while practically all the local laws or private acts were passed
without limitation of time.

The act providing for the trial in the several counties where the case arose,
before two justices of the Provincial Court sitting there, of certain cases which
hitherto had been heard only in Annapolis at the Provincial Court, is itself of
interest in that the preamble declares that the " Tryal of Facts in the Neigh-
borhood where they arise, is the greatest Security of the Lives, Liberties,
Fortunes, and Estates of the Subjects .... and most agreeable to the British
Constitution." Other acts were passed at this session to prevent the smuggling
of slaves and servants out of the Province by shipmasters; to prevent the con-
cealment by the finders of boats which had drifted from their moorings; to
facilitate the recovery of small debts; to authorize " commissioners to examine
witnesses beyond sea and for the easy foreclosure of mortgages "; and for the
relief of English creditors in actions against bankrupts in the Province. A
law was passed providing for the appointment by the Lord Proprietary of
trustees in London to invest the funds of the Province in English bank stock.
Similar authority had in the past been granted to the late Proprietary. An
act was passed as a special mark of esteem for Governor Sharpe, imposing a
duty of halfpenny a hogshead on all tobacco exported as an additional allowance
to him; but it is to be noted that the operation of this act was limited to one
year, for reasons which seem rather obvious.

Reference to the Appendix (pages 623-631) will show that three acts passed
in June 1751 were severely criticized by Charles Pratt, later Lord Camden,
to whom they had been referred in 1752 by the guardians of the Proprietary,
then a minor, as to whether they should be dissented to or not. One of these
involving the title to lots in Princess Anne Town in Somerset County, and
another, the act providing " for the more effectual punishment of negroes and
other slaves," contained certain questionable provisions. Pratt advised that the