Letter of Transmittal. xv

tration of his office, and formally reprimanded him. The Governor in his
message to the Lower House on the subject declared that he had gone into the
matter carefully and felt that the justice was not as culpable as the Lower
House supposed, and that he had been guilty of no misdemeanor whatever. He
then very pointedly remarked that it was his duty to protect the people from
extra-legal exercise of the law, and to prevent them from being prosecuted out
of the ordinary course of procedure, and added " I cannot help recommending
to you, Gentlemen, as you sit here at a very considerable Expense to the Country,
to forbear to meddle, for the future, with such Complaints, as are (if not
groundless) relievable elsewhere, and are the proper Objects for the Enquiry
of another Jurisdiction," a not too-gentle reminder to the House to mind its
own business. The Rawlings' inquiry before the Lower House seems to have
been instigated by the personal animosity of Henry Wright Crabb, a member
from Frederick County, and was apparently unjustified (Archiv. Md., vi., 191).

A joint committee of both houses on February 26th presented an audit of the
accounts of the office of the Commissioners for Emitting Bills of Credit, as it
was called by the Lower House, or the Paper Currency Office, as it was desig-
nated by the Upper House. It is difficult to understand why the two houses
consistently used different terms to designate the office of the commissioners
which issued the bills of credit or paper currency.

The Roman Catholic question cropped up promptly in the form of a bill
" for preventing the Importation of German and French Papists " which was
immediately passed by the Lower House. The preamble stated that many Ger-
man and French Papists, Popish priests, and Jesuits, had lately entered the
Province from Pennsylvania and Delaware, and had promptly taken up lands
on the western frontier near the French fort, where they would probably com-
municate secret intelligence to the enemy, and where on account of their " in-
satiable Desire of universal Conversion to their own religious Opinions " they
were a danger to " the good Protestant People " of this Province. The bill im-
posed a tax of £5 on every German or Irish Catholic and of £200 on every priest
or Jesuit entering the Province, with fines as high as £20 and £400, respectively,
if such persons were smuggled into the Province. One-half of these taxes and
fines were to be used to defray the expenses of the military expedition and one-
half were to go to the informers. The Upper House amended the bill by cutting
down the amount of the tax and the fines, and by apportioning one-third of these
to be used for military purposes, one-third to go to the informers, and one-
third to the Lord Proprietary. The Lower House rejected the amended bill
because under it a third had been given to the Proprietary, and ordered it to be
printed in full in its Journal of Votes and Proceedings.