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L.H.J.
Liber No. 49
Dec. 16
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ever (this Message having already run out into an unusual Length)
reserve them for another Occasion, and conclude this Head with
hoping, that by this Time it sufficiently appears, that the last Lower
House were wrong in asserting that the Naval-Officers
" Ought not to have taken any Impost-Bonds," because,
" It is an Indulgence unknown to the Law : "
" That the Duty of such Servants is required to be paid down at
the Time of Entry," And,
" That it was the Duty of those Officers to have refused to have
Entered such Vessels, until the said Duty was paid down."
And consequently that their Conclusion drawn from those
Premisses,
" For which those Officers ought to be answerable,"
Cannot be right.
But, before I quit this Head concerning the Naval-Officers, I
cannot but observe, that the Report, an Extract of which you have
in the Beginning of this Message, omits doing that Justice to those
Officers which is strictly their Due; for it mentions not how that
Committee came by their Knowledge of the Refusal of the Masters
of the Vessels therein mentioned, to pay those Duties, nor one Word
of any Impost-Bonds having been taken, as the Country's Security
for the Payment of those Duties; tho' the Naval-Officer of Annapolis
assures me, that at the Foot of the first Account he passed with the
Commissioners, which Account was, I presume, by them laid before
that Committee; and likewise at the Foot of a List of the Entries of
Servants, which he delivered into that House by my Order on their
Address, under a N. B. he mentions the Masters of those Vessels,
as having refused to pay the Duty upon those Convicts; but that
the Office was in Possession of their Impost-Bonds, taken payable
to the Lord Proprietary; but a Suit upon which, those Duties, if due,
might be recovered : And that this Intimation was given, as well to
prevent, from an Unaquaintance with these Facts, the Loss of that
Money to the Public; as, at the same Time to show that Lower House,
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p. 228
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that he had done his Duty, by taking those Impost-Bonds, which are
the established Security to the Public for all Country Duties.
Why were not these Facts mentioned ? Why, when that Committee
was examining into the Conduct of those Officers, were some Trans-
actions by Information from themselves, noticed, and others, tho'
appearing upon the Face of the same Evidence, concealed? Was it
merely for the Sake of patching up a Charge against them, in order
to get their Office-Bonds sued? And can you, after this Behaviour
of that Committee, and that House, say, their Representations are
Just, and your Complaints, in Consequence of them, Reasonable?
Believe me, Gentlemen, that such a Course of Proceeding in the
Representatives of the People, is so far from acquiring to them that
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