Introduction. xvii

ment (p. 206). It resolved that all commissions to judges should have incor-
porated a clause requiring that all justices in the Province should enforce
all the laws of England except where these had been superseded or modified
by laws of the Province; that the oaths taken by judges should contain a
declaration that justice should not be delayed or influenced by instructions from
King or Proprietary; that the people of Maryland were entitled to the bene-
fits of the Common Law of England, as this Province had been purchased from
the Indians and could not in any way be deemed as " a conquered country ":
and lastly, that although the house was convinced that the Act of 1704 under
which twelve pence export duty was collected on each hogshead of tobacco
by the Proprietary for his personal use, had legally expired, even were it still
in force, three pence of this should be devoted to the purchase of arms and
ammunition for the defence of the Province and not go into Baltimore's
pockets.

Several disputed election cases which came before the Lower House for
decision are fully commented upon elsewhere in this introduction (pp. xxxiii-
xxxv). The attempt of the Lower House, made two days after the session
began, to have the Sergeant-at-arms arrest in the Governor's home, John Ridout,
the Governor's secretary, and bring him before the bar of the house so as to force
him to disclose certain information in regard to public matters, justly aroused
the Governor's ire and resulted in a heated dispute in which the Governor
vehemently maintained the independence and immunities of himself and of
those officially associated with him, as a coordinate branch of the government.
This episode, known in these contemporary records as " this unlucky Affair
of Mr. Ridout's " is discussed in considerable detail elsewhere (pp. xxxv-
xxxvii).

The Lower House then instructed a committee composed of Philip Ham-
mond, Edward Tilghman, Edward Dorsey, Mathew Tilghman, William
Murdock, and Charles Carroll the Barrister, to draw up the important Supply
bill which the Assembly had been brought together by the Governor to enact.
This was the " Supply Bill for His Majesty's Service " to raise the men and
money which the Province had been called upon by the King's ministers to con-
tribute for the prosecution of the war. It was nearly four weeks later, when on
November 12, the bill was brought by the committee before the Lower House,
where it was considered in committee of the whole. The details of the two
months bitter struggle which ensued between the two houses as to the terms
of this bill, its final failure to pass because they were unable to agree upon
the sources of taxation by which the £45,000 required was to be raised, and
the restrictions which the Lower House sought to place upon the use of the
troops by the Governor, are all fully narrated later (pp. xxv-xxvi).

On September 30, 1757, William Murdock, one of the "agents " entrusted
with the disbursement of the funds raised under the various previously enacted
Supply bills, who was also a member of the Lower House, presented the books
and accounts of the agents for examination (pp. 209-210). These were duly
" inspected " by a committee appointed by this house, and a report on the ex-
penditures filed (pp. 213-214, 257-262). A joint committee was appointed by
both houses to inspect the accounts of the commissioners for emitting Bills of