xxvi Letter of Transmittal.

they do .... most heartily co-operate with his Majesty and their Neighboring
Governments by granting such effectual Supplys and prosecuting such Vigor-
ous Measures against the Common Enemy," as necessity required.

Primed for a struggle with the Proprietary forces as represented by the
Governor and the Upper House, the Lower House proceeded to adopt a series
of resolves, or declarations of principles, which had been in great part previously
adopted at the October 1722 Assembly, which were ordered to be entered on
the Journal (Arch. Md., xxxiv, 440, 441, 442). By these resolves the Com-
mittee on Grievances and Courts of Justice, as part of its duty, was directed
to scrutinize carefully all new commissions to judges of the several courts of
the Province and the forms of oath to be taken by them; to see that no altera-
tions or omissions were made in their wording under which they were required
to try and determine cases " according to the Laws, Statutes, Ordinances, and
reasonable Customs of England, and of this Province "; and they were further
to see to it that a similar oath of office to that made by judges in England
should be taken in this Province, which shall specifically declare that they
will administer justice without delay to rich and poor notwithstanding any
" Letters of the King, the Lord Proprietary, or of any other " to the contrary.
It was further declared " That this Province is not under the Circumstances of
a conquered Country; that if it were, the present Christian Inhabitants ....
would be .... not of the Conquered, but of the Conqueror, it being a Colony of
the English Nation," nor are the native Indian infidels to be looked upon as con-
quered " because the Christian Inhabitants purchased great part of the Land they
at first took up from the Indians, as well as from the Lord Proprietary." The
resolution further asserted that " this Province hath always hitherto had the
Common Law, and such general Statutes of England, as are securitative of the
Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and such Acts of Assembly as were made in
the Province to suit it's particular Constitution," and that in no case should
commissions to judges be issued without directions of that nature. The resolves
concluded with a protest against a grievance not mentioned in the resolution
of 1722, but which in recent years had perhaps rankled more than any other.
This related to the export duty upon tobacco shipped out of the Province,
all of which went to the Proprietary. The Lower House declared that the
levying of twelve pence sterling upon every hogshead of tobacco, and its appro-
priation by the Proprietary to himself under the act of 1704, was not war-
ranted by law, because it was their conviction that the law terminated when the
Province was returned to the Calverts in 1715; but even if it be asserted that the
law had continued in force since their restoration, then agreeable to the instruc-
tions of Queen Anne, when the act was admittedly in operation, under which
she directed that threepence out of the twelve pence be applied to the purchase