Introduction. xxxvii

Col. Cresap, the house jumped at the opportunity not only to discredit the
Governor by thus questioning his good faith, but also to attack the status of
Ridout as an accredited secretary authorized by law. The attack upon the
Governor was based upon an alleged failure on his part, as disclosed by these
accounts, to observe all the rigid limitations upon military expenditures laid
down by an act of the Assembly, and at the same time to dispute the Gover-
nor's right to create any new office whatever without the specific approval of
the Assembly in each case. The house took the stand that a Secretary to the
Governor was not authorized either by the Charter or by legislation, and that
Ridout therefore had no constitutional rights or immunities which the house
need respect. Apart from the fact that in this instance the Governor was able
to show that he had both precedent and prerogative on his side, the inexcusably
bad manners shown by the Lower House in the whole affair wins our sympathy
for him.

The Governor in his closing message of December 15, 1757, on the Ridout
affair traces in an interesting and dispassionate way and in great detail the
origin and development from the founding of the Province of the prerogatives
and functions of the Lower House, of the Upper House, and of the Gov-
ernor, and shows that former governors had in their official families indi-
viduals recognized by the Assembly as holding positions similar to that now
occupied by Ridout (pp. 361-375). Of especial interest is his account of the
unsuccessful attempt of Governor Fendall just a hundred years before to
abolish by violence the Upper House (p. 369).

One feels that in " this unlucky affair of Mr. Ridout's " Sharpe had much
the better of the dispute. He later summarizes the episode in a personal letter,
dated December 26, 1757, to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore's Secretary in
London, in which he also refers to the growing practice of the Lower House of
calling before it persons for real or pretended offenses, and its unaccountable
pretension that " the Upper House is no part of our Constitution " (Arch.
Md. ix, 119-120). The Ridout affair is also further discussed by Governor
Sharpe in a letter dated January i, 1758, addressed to his brother William
Sharpe, in which he points out that the Lower House now undertakes to
assume all the powers of the House of Commons (Arch. Md. ix, 124-125).
We will see later that neither the Proprietary nor the legal advisors of the
British government were willing to admit this latter claim.

FORT CUMBERLAND

Fort Cumberland, located about seventy-five miles westward by road from
Fort Frederick, was a bone of contention between the Lower House and
Governor Sharpe. The house maintained that it was too far from the settle-
ments to be an efficient protection to the Maryland frontier inhabitants, and
that it should therefore be garrisoned and maintained by British troops, because
it was only useful as a point of advance by a large British force against the
French on the Ohio. The short-sighted attempts of the Lower House in its
various Supply bills to prohibit by legislation the use of Maryland's Provincial