xxviii Introduction.

Supply bill was enacted into a law. The Upper House felt with truth that an
attack was being made deliberately upon the prerogatives of both the Crown
and the Lord Proprietary; and the Lower House with the bit in its teeth,
through its control of the Provincial purse strings, adopted the policy of ques-
tioning nearly every constitutional right hitherto conceded to the Proprietary
and to the Crown to which it could put forward even the most strained
constitutional or legalistic claim. For this impasse the Lower House and the
Proprietary must both share the blame. Frederick, Lord Baltimore, a non-
resident wasteling landlord, was too short-sighted to sec the ultimate result
of his refusal to make concessions to his people in regard to the taxation of
his Maryland estates. He assumed that this could be avoided under a legalistic
interpretation of his privileges as derived from a medieval charter. The Lower
House, on the other hand, sought to further the demands of the people for a
greater degree of self-government by advancing constitutional sophistries and
indulging in legal quibbles that had little or no standing before the law, in the
hope that the Crown would become so disgusted with the impasse that it would
either force the Proprietary to make concessions or annul his charter. Sharpe
was in a most unfortunate position. He realized that Baltimore should make
concessions, but as the Proprietary representative he was obliged to maintain
the claims which Baltimore felt had the support of the law. Sharpe was being
pressed by the Crown to secure the passage of the Supply bill. He was being
denounced by the representatives of the people for upholding the Proprietary.
But notwithstanding all these difficulties, he continued to be personally popular
among all classes. This struggle between the Proprietary and the people was
to have more far-reaching results than were realized at the time. The battle
against Proprietary arrogance developed a spirit of independence among the
people which did much to foster the revolutionary movement in the next two
decades. The failure of Maryland and other colonies to help pay the costs of
the war for their defence was soon to result in the passage of the Stamp
Act by Parliament as the means of indirectly forcing them to do so. The Revo-
lution was to follow in due course.

At the March-May 1758 session, the Supply bill, or bill for His Majesty's
Service, was introduced in the Lower House by a committee composed of the
same men, with the addition of Robert Lloyd, who had drawn up the Supply
bill at the three previous sessions. Except that the amount to be raised was
increased from £30,000 to £45,000, and that a much larger number of men
were to be recruited under it, this was doubtless substantially the same bill
which was being debated in the Lower House at the last session, when Sharpe
suddenly, on March 7, prorogued the Assembly. The first draft " granted a
Supply of £40,000 ", but during the debate this amount was increased to £45,000
(pp. 557, 575). The title of the bill as authorized on March 31, and intro-
duced on April 6, was identical with the Supply bill which had failed of pas-
sage at the recent session, except in the increase of the amount to be raised,
and in the bills of credit to be issued (pp. 557, 571). The bill as introduced
was considered by the Lower House sitting as a committee of the whole and
was amended in several respects, usually by a recorded vote. The number of