Letter of Transmittal. xvii

nesses residing beyond sea and for the more easy foreclosure of mortgages."
No papers explaining why this act was dissented to by the Lord Proprietary
have been unearthed, so further comment is unprofitable, but it was doubtless
on legal grounds and on the advice of William Murray, later Lord Mansfield,
as it was he who at this time was the legal advisor to Frederick, and upon whose
recommendation the act next mentioned was also vetoed.

An act had been passed in 1720 vesting a good title in Richard Bennett in
certain lands in Maryland. The Assembly at this 1753 session repealed this
earlier act, and under the terms of the repeal ownership in the land was wrested
from Bennett Chew, a minor, who had inherited it from Richard Bennett, and
vested by the act in another claimant, Thomas Catterall. Reading the voluminous
papers in the case reported in the Appendix, the repeal act seems to be a clear
case of confiscation of private property by legislative authority without due
process of law. Murray in his opinion to the Proprietary, dated November 16,
1754, declares, " I think the Act of Repeal so very bad and unjust upon the
Face of it, and so Dangerous an Example, that if no Opposition had been given
to it, nor Application made to the Lord Proprietary He ought in Wisdom and
Justice, of his own accord, to have dissented thereto, and I apprehend that
no more is necessary then to read the two Laws to be fully convinced that
the last ought not to stand; nor such a Precedent be endured." It would be inter-
esting to know how such legislation could have passed both houses, especially in
view o'f the fact that Bennett Chew, probably then about eighteen or nineteen
years old, was a step-son of no less a person than Daniel Dulany, the elder, and
had at the time two influential step-brothers, Daniel Dulany, the younger, and
Walter Dulany, in the Lower House.

Acts authorizing the cutting of entails, empowering vestrymen to build and
repair churches, appointing visitors to county schools, authorizing the exchange
of lands, the laying out of Long Point in Cecil County, the building of county
prisons and court houses, and the recovery of moneys from delinquent sheriffs,
will be found among the laws passed. The usual act empowering the public
printer, Jonas Green, to print the session laws and the Votes and Proceedings
of the Lower House for the session was approved. A former act prohibiting
the sale of liquors and the holding of horse races near the yearly meetings of
the Quakers was further strengthened; and another old act was amended to
prevent the sale of strong liquors by persons having no license.

The fourth session of the Assembly elected in 1751, which met February 26,
1754, was called by the Governor to act upon the critical situation which was
rapidly developing on the western frontier. Sharpe addressed both houses and
transmitted to them a letter from the Lords of Trade and Plantations directed
to the governors of the several colonies, urging them to secure the appointment