Letter of Transmittal. xiii

prerogative of the Proprietary; (3) that the imposition of an additional duty
on English indentured servants would impede the settlement of the Province;
(4) that an additional restrictive duty on convicts would bring the Province
into conflict with the English government. The Lower House replied that these
objections to the bill were unwarranted. It declared that the addition to the
paper currency issue was too small to have any effect, that the sinking fund
requirements of certain existing issues would in a short time more than neu-
tralize this issue, and that the additional duties on imported servants and con-
victs were too small to have the consequences alleged.

Of the other provisions of the bill we are ignorant, as it is not printed in the
Votes and Proceedings of the March session, but it was probably similar to the
bill passed by the Lower House at its next session in July, which was also des-
tined to be rejected by the Upper House. In the July bill, in addition to the
items objected to by the Upper House in the March bill, we find wheel carriages
taxed and import duties imposed on spirits, wines, sugar, and molasses, addi-
tions which the Upper House does not appear to have questioned.

The crux of the controversy was the question of licence fees from ordinaries;
these, under the bill, were to be applied to the sinking fund to secure the bills
of credit or currency to be issued to defray the military expenditures. There can
be no question that the other objections to the bill would have been easily
settled, as they seemed to have been forgotten in the acrimonious dispute about
the ordinary licences which now developed between the two houses, as disclosed
by the numerous messages on the subject which passed between them, and to
which reference has already been made.

It is difficult to apportion the blame of the failure of the Assembly, at this
and the next session, to agree upon a plan to raise funds for military operations
on the frontier. The Lower House was stubborn in its determination to continue
to use the licence fees from ordinaries for this purpose, and as a matter of
principle refused to eliminate this item from its bill. The Upper House, acting
under orders from the Proprietary to the Governor, refused to accept it. The
responsibility for its rejection while apparently upon the shoulders of the Gov-
ernor and Council, should really be placed upon Frederick, the Lord Proprietary
and non-resident landlord, whose only interest in Maryland was as a source
of revenue for his private purse. That both the disputants should be so blind to
the danger that threatened the Province at this crisis seems extraordinary, for in
less than four months General Braddock was to march through the Province
against the French and to meet a humiliating defeat, exposing the people of
Maryland to grave peril. That the eyes of the Lower House were closed to the
great danger, is shown by its declaration that Maryland was less concerned with