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appoint Officers, cannot be greater than that from whence it is de-
rived, and never could be intended to extend to Officers of the Kind
(if you will call them Officers) nominated in the Bill. As the House
of Commons exercises that Power, does it not reasonably follow
that the Right here is in this House ?
To this Part of the Bill, then, your Honours may be assured we
shall unalterably adhere, not assuming to ourselves a new Power
in the Nomination of Commissioners, but exercising that Power
as one of our just and constitutional Rights; we shall not therefore
suffer the Estates of the People to be taxed by Officers deriving
their Power from the sole Appointment of the Lord Baltimore:
Gentlemen are nominated Commissioners in the Bill, against whom
no reasonable Objection can lay, and who can look with Contempt
upon Insinuations, that their being any Way accountable to us for
their Conduct, would have any undue Influence over their Actions.
Your Honours, after enumerating every particular Duty to be
performed under this Act by the Commissioners or Trustees of the
Paper Office, for which they are each of them to receive the Sum of
Ten Pounds and no more, conclude, " These are the Services re-
quired from them, and this the Reward given by this Bill to those
Officers, who have been appointed by the Government." Is this fair
and candid? Permit us to say, and to shew, that it is not. These
Commissioners, under the first Paper Currency Law, receive an
annual Salary of Eighty Pounds, for which very few Services remain
at this Time to be done, and those are chiefly performed by their
Clerk, who by the same Act has a Salary of Eighty Pounds p
Annum. By the £40,000 Act, these Commissioners have, during the
Continuance of it, Ten Pounds p Annum added to the above Salary,
and very few Duties are prescribed, but such as may be, and are
done, by their Clerk, who also by the same Act has an additional
Salary of Ten Pounds p Year. In Consideration then of their
Salary of Ninety Pounds p Year, the present Bill adds to the few
Services they have to perform under the former Laws, the several
Duties mentioned in your Honour's Message; all which, except
that of superintending the Printer, and of signing the Bills (for
the Numbering and Dating is done by the Clerk) and attending
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 50
April 26
p. 107
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their Office two Days in the Week (which they ought long ago to
have been obliged to) will very little increase the Trouble of the
Office.
In this View, we are persuaded, every one must see those Com-
missioners are not unjustly burthened by the said Bill, and we are
afraid it will appear but too plain, from this trifling Objection, spun
out to so great a length, that your Honours are more Solicitous to
give ill Impressions of the Bill, than by a candid and dispassionate
procedure, to endeavour to perfect it in those Parts which you may
really be of Opinion are defective. The Office of the Agents, by the
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p. 108
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