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L. H. J.
Liber No. 48
Aprils
p.217
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Philip Hammond, Esq; from the Committee of Laws, brings in
and delivers to M.r Speaker the Bill entituled, An Act for granting a
Supply of Forty Thousand Pounds for his Majesty's Service And
for Striking £340I5..16..0 thereof in Bills of Credit and Raising a
fund for Sinking the same which was committed for Amendments,
and with the Amendments made thereof, was now read the second
Time, and will pass; and was sent to the Upper House by Philip
Hammond, Esq; and 14 more.
M.r Murdock, from the Committee appointed to prepare an Ad-
dress to his Excellency, in Answer to his Message of the 8th of July
last, brings in and delivers to M.r Speaker the following, viz.
To his Excellency Horatio Sharpe, Esq; Governor and Commander
in Chief in and over the Province of Maryland.
The humble Address of the House of Delegates.
May it please your Excellency,
The Prorogation of the Assembly, which so immediately ensued
upon the Return of your Excellency's Answer to our Address con-
cerning the Growth and Influence of Popery within this Province,
precluded us from the Possibility of making such a Reply as we did
then and still judge necessary, both to justify our own Conduct, and
to elucidate those particular Facts mentioned in the Address, for
which we have been so severely taken to Task. Had we been mistaken
as to some inconsiderable Circumstances of the Facts laid down to
your Excellency, which we do not yet find, there would be no Room
to Triumph; for that our Address rested solely upon those Facts,
or that we had no other Cause of Complaint but what they adminis-
tered, is by no Means the Case: Those general Assertions or In-
sinuations, as your Excellency is pleased to call them, we thought
might be sufficient in a Matter of such public Notoriety; but, as a
Disquisition more extensive and more explicit seems now to be nec-
essary, we shall comply with the Occasion, and proceed to shew, that
the Evil we complained of is, as we have said, very inverterate, and
that it hath long called for Redress.
It is too notorious to need any Proof, that Offices of Profit and
Trust were generally, if not altogether, in the Possession of Papists,
from the first Settlement of this Province down to the Revolution;
and as Popery was then Triumphant, the Jesuits did not neglect an
Opportunity so favourable to the Ambition and Avarice of their
Order: They secured to themselves great Landed Estates upon which
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p. 218
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they have a Number of Slaves, and many Tenements, which yield
them large annual Revenues, erected Mass-Houses, and lived to-
gether in a Collegiate Manner; and even since that happy Period,
they have not only continued in full Possession of those Estates,
but have been permitted to make new Acquisitions by Bequests, and
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