xxxiv Letter of Transmittal.

the Lower House and to disprove the pretensions of the Proprietary, the title
indicating that it harked back to the act of 1704 passed in the reign of Queen
Anne which the Lower House asserted was still operative.

After spending some days in considering a militia bill as requested by the
Governor, and voting on various exemptions and other details, the Lower House
on October 7th by a vote of 20 to 14 suddenly decided not to consider the bill
further at this session.

The Lower House also postponed action upon the recommendation of the
Governor that Maryland join with Virginia in erecting a lighthouse at Cape
Henry.

The usual audit by a joint committee of the two houses of the Paper Cur-
rency or Loan Office, was made and approved, and the Governor was urged
to bring suit against sundry sheriffs who had failed to pay over to the Province
certain monies which had been collected by them.

The act to prevent warlike stores and provisions from reaching the enemy,
which had passed at the third session, and had been continued at the fourth, and
was now about to expire by limitation, was again continued in effect until May
1757. The act, passed at the preceding February-May session, for building a
causeway through Vienna Marsh in Dorchester County, was repealed and a new
law for the same purpose passed. An act reimbursing the owners of tobacco
stored in a public tobacco warehouse in Charles County and the usual act to pay
Jonas Green for printing the Session Laws and the Votes and Proceedings of
the Lower House were passed. The Assembly was then prorogued on October
9th to meet again March 31, 1757.

In the choice of the material of this period for publication there are avail-
able both manuscript and contemporary printed records of the proceedings of
the Lower House and of the acts of the Assembly. The proceedings of the
Lower House in printed form known as the Votes and Proceedings of the
Lower House were published immediately following the conclusion of each
session. In addition to this printed record the State possesses a complete series
of volumes containing the manuscript records of the proceedings of the Lower
House. These may be looked upon as the official records of the activities of the
Lower House. In addition to official records inscribed in these old libers, there
have been preserved for many of the sessions the rough notes kept by the Clerk
of the Lower House from which these official records in the old libers were
copied. In general, it may be said that the material as it now appears in this
volume of the Archives of Maryland is based in form on the Votes and Pro-
ceedings as printed by Jonas Green of Annapolis, the Provincial printer, checked
up with the official manuscript libers. Where differences occur, that found in