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L. H. J.
Liber No. 48
May 1
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Legislature here, can receive any additional Force from a Procla-
mation of his Lordship's Assent to it.
An Allowance to Members of the Council of State, for their
Attendance as a Council of State, we cannot consent to, such Allow-
ance not being warranted by any Law of this Province; but, on the
contrary, implicitly denied by the Act of Assembly entituled, An Act
for directing the Manner of electing and summoning Delegates, &c.
which ascertains the Allowance to Counsellors, whilst serving in the
General Assembly of this Province, Delegates, Provincial and County
Magistrates.
As you say there are several Laws in Force, which require many
Services to be done by M.r Ross, as Clerk of the Council, when his
Account, for such Services, is laid before us, it shall be considered,
and every reasonable Allowance made; but to make Allowances, for
Services annually performed in Compliance with Laws, without any
Account of the Services ever being laid before us, is a Method of
dealing out the Peoples Money we can never come into.
There have not been any Accounts laid before us of Expences
incurred by any Militia, ordered out by the Governor to the Assist-
ance of our back Inhabitants; when there are, we will take them
into Consideration.
And, May it please your Honours, as the Discharge of the Pub-
lic Debt, now of Nine Years standing, and amounting to about
4,498,092 lbs. in Tobacco, and £1538 Current Money, on the 17th
Day of March last, to which Time the Journal of Accounts was
closed, must be very burthensome to the People, and, if suffered
to be annually increasing, must be still more so; and as depriving
the Servants of the Public of the Wages allotted to them, some by
express Laws, and others by the plainest Rules of common Right
and Justice, obliges many to part with them at a very low Rate, and
renders Public Credit Contemptible; and as we hope we have fully
satisfied your Honours, that no Demand against the Public, which
has either a Lawful or reasonable Foundation, is omitted to be made
in the Journal of Accounts; we herewith send it up again to your
Honours, not doubting, but, upon more mature Deliberation, on
the Contemptible State of our Public Credit, and on the Circum-
stances both the Public Creditors and the People are brought into,
by the Delay of undoubted Right to the one, and keeping a heavy
increasing Debt hanging over the other, you will send it down with
your Assent. And we propose, for the Ease of the People, that
the Public Debt be Levied by Two equal Assessments, in which we
hope for your Honours Concurrence.
Signed per Order, M. Macnemara, Cl. Lo. Ho.
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