xvi Introduction.

Seventeen laws were enacted at the April-May 1757 session. The Supply
bill, or act for His Majesty's Service (No. i), was of course the most important
legislation passed (pp. 119-129). The struggle between the two houses as to
this act is fully discussed later (pp. xxv-xxvii). Ten of these acts (Nos. 2-11)
continued in effect laws enacted at previous sessions which were about to
expire by time limitations. A new law (No. 14) was passed to compensate
masters of servants " enticed by Recruiting Officers to enter His Majesty's
Service ", the value of the unexpired term of service to be determined by the
justices of the county courts (pp. 136-137). The usual act (No. 15) for the
relief of certain languishing prisoners, twenty-one in number, confined in
county jails for debt, was passed (pp. 137-141). An act was passed (No. 16)
to reimburse a number of persons for expenditures, obviously for the public
service (pp. 141-143). As most of these persons seem to have been residents
of Baltimore County, it is likely that these were expenditures incident to the
session which had recently been held in Baltimore Town. An act (No. 17) was
passed to prevent the exportation of warlike stores and provisions which might
reach the French through neutral ports. There was so much opposition to the
passage of this bill, which the people felt would greatly hamper trade, that its
operation was limited to less than three months (pp. 143-145). This and
other embargo measures are discussed more fully later (pp. xlviii-1). Two local
laws were passed. One (No. 12) allowed the justices of Dorchester County to
lease part of a lot in the town of Cambridge originally acquired for the erection
of a prison (pp. 134-135). The other act (No. 13) extended the time in
which clergymen, lawyers, and officers of All Hallows' Parish in Worcester
County might pay their poll taxes (p. 135).

SESSION OF SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER, 1757.

The first session of the new Assembly elected in August and September,
1757, met in Annapolis on September 28, and continued in session for nearly
three months. If Sharpe had hoped for the election of a more pliant Lower
House than the one which had recently proved so obdurate, he was to be
sadly disappointed. The same men who had previously led the popular party
had been reelected, and the two Tilghmans, Matthew and Edward, Charles
Carroll the Barrister, William Murdock, Edward Dorsey, Philip Hammond
and John Goldsborough, headed most of the important committees and directed
the policies of the House. The popular or county party continued to out-
number the Proprietary group in about the proportion of four to one.

The session opened with the usual exchange of messages and addresses
between the Governor and the Lower House. It organized by selecting Henry
Hooper of Dorchester as Speaker, Michael Macnamara, Clerk, Capt. Robert
Saunders, Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Rev. Clement Brooke to read prayers.
It adopted rules for its governance and appointed various committees (pp. 200-
201, 213). At the outset, as a gesture to show its independence of Pro-
prietary influence, the House adopted a number of resolutions emphasizing
the views of the majority on sundry political questions, which had in the past
given rise to sharp differences between this house and the Proprietary govern-