Introduction. xix

credit to any person for liquor sold him (pp. 402-407). Two local acts were
passed : one (No. 13) prohibited any person from allowing sheep or geese from
running at large in Frederick Town (p. 398); and the other (No. 14) abolished
the tobacco inspection warehouse at Plum Point in Calvert County (p. 399).
One private act (No. 15) authorized Susannah, the widow of Talbot Risteau
of the town of Joppa in Baltimore County, as executrix, to sell certain lands
to pay her husband's debts (pp. 399-401). The committee of the Lower House
to which was referred the widow's petition to be allowed to sell houses and
lots in Joppa for the payment of these debts, recommended that her request
be granted as it was " in a Town unlikely to Flourish ", a prophesy to be soon
fulfilled (p. 306). The creditor who had obtained judgement against the
widow for £767:18:0, was Sampson Levy, probably one of the earliest
Jewish settlers in Baltimore County.

The agents appointed under the several Supply acts made a lengthy report
to the Lower House on November n, 1757. This report was a survey of the
military expenditures made under the various supply acts and dealt with
soldiers' pay. bounties, quartering of troops, provisions, messengers, arms,
ammunition, scalp bounties, and sundry other items. To the student of mili-
tary affairs of this period it is an interesting document. The legality of cer-
tain expenditures, such as the employment of women as cooks and nurses,
was questioned by the committee of the Lower House which examined the
accounts (pp. 213-214, 257-266).

SESSION OF FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1758.

The Assembly met at Annapolis, February 13, 1758, in what was called by
the Lower House a " meeting ", and by the Upper House a " convention "
of the Assembly, for at this futile session no legislation of any kind was
enacted. The previous session had been prorogued on September 15, 1757, to
meet again on January 3, 1758 (p. 390), but by later proclamations it had
been successively prorogued until January 17, January 24, and February 6
(Arch. Md. xxxi, 240), although it did not actually meet until a week after
the last mentioned date. In his opening speech to both houses, Governor
Sharpe told them that he had sent to the Earl of Loudoun their addresses of
September 15 and December 16, together with a copy of the rejected Supply
bill, and was now transmitting the Earl's reply, with the expectation that they
would promptly comply with his very reasonable representations (p. 411).
Loudoun's letter, dated at New York, December 30, 1757, declared that as to
the military part of the bill " had it been passed into a Law of the Province,
it would have been a direct Infringement of the King's undoubted Prerogative,
and as such was very wisely rejected by the Upper House ". This was of
course a reference to the restriction which the Lower House sought to put
upon the use of Maryland troops both as regards their disposition and their
virtual control not by the Governor, but by agents to be appointed by the
Assembly. He reminded them that the Provincial troops of the northeastern
colonies had for three years been serving in New York, and that there had
never been raised elsewhere the question as to the right of the commander-in-