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own Risque, and by no Means an established Security for Country
Duties; we think it must follow, that the Naval-Officers of the
Ports of Patowmack and Annapolis have been guilty of a direct
Breach of Duty, in not collecting from the Importers of Convicts
the Duties imposed by the Act in 1754 on Servants for Seven Years
or upwards, among which Convicts are undoubtedly included: And
though your Excellency is pleased to say, " But if nothing less than
Suits on those Officers Bonds will Content you, I must beg to be
excused; " yet we hope what we have now said may induce you to
alter your Resolution; and therefore we do again request, we do
insist upon it as a Matter we have a Right to expect from your
Excellency, who has the Supreme Executive Power in this Govern-
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 50
April 19
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ment, and whose Duty it is to preserve the Laws in their full Strength,
that Directions be given for the putting the Bonds of these Officers
in Suit immediately : And now permit us to assure your Excellency,
that as it is our indispensible Duty, so it is our fixed and unalterable
Resolution, as faithful Guardians of the Lives, Liberties and Proper-
ties of the People, to Protect and Defend them as far as we are able,
against all undue Exercise of Power, and every Omission and Neglect
of Duty, in the Officers of this Government, from the Highest to the
Lowest. This is the Spirit, we presume, that governed the late, it is
the Spirit that governs this, House, and shall govern it as long as
we have the Honour to set as one Branch of the Legislature of this
Province.
We come now to the second Head of your Excellency's Message,
relative to the Commissioners of the Paper Currency Office, and we
shall have no occasion to detain you long upon it. We hoped, as the
Monies paid so many Years ago into that Office, by Trippe, Porter,
and Bradford, had not been accounted for by the Commissioners, it
would have been a Motive with your Excellency more speedily to
have complied with our Request to put their Bonds in Suit, in order
to compel them to Credit the Public with it: And to satisfy your
Excellency that the Commissioners are not intitled to that further
Indulgence that you seem inclinable to give them, we beg leave to
refer you to the Record of the Proceedings in the several Actions
Prosecuted in the Provincial Court, at the instance of a former
Lower House of Assembly, on the Sheriffs Bonds of Trippe, Porter,
and Bradford, where you may see, that no less than Nine Actions
were prosecuted against Trippe, and his Securities, on his Sheriff's
Bonds pass'd in the Years 1740, 1741, and 1742; and that in each of
those Actions, the said Trippe, and his Securities, severally Plead,
that Trippe had paid the several Sums of Money collected by him
as Sheriff of Dorchester County, for which his Bonds were severally
sued, to the Commissioners of the Paper Office; and upon such
Pleading, Issues were joined in all the said Actions; but that One
only was Tried, in which the Jury found a General Verdict in favor
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p. 84
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