INTRODUCTION.

During the period of nearly four years covered by these General Assembly
records, relations between the Governor and the Upper House representing
the Proprietary interest on the one hand, and the Lower House reflecting the
feelings of the majority of the people on the other, continued to be under
great strain. The struggle which began at the September-December 1757 ses-
sion between the two houses over the passage of a Supply bill for His Ma-
jesty's Service, or Assessment bill as it was popularly called, which had
been three times rejected by the Upper House in the preceding Assembly as
a measure directed against the Proprietary prerogative, became intensified, and
the bill, again passed five times by the Lower House in this new Assembly, was
to be as often rejected in the upper chamber. Not only this bill, which was the
most important legislation of a controversial character to be considered, failed
of passage, but on the same ground, as threats to the Proprietary prerogative,
other measures of a controversial nature were also rejected, such as the support
for a provincial agent in Great Britain, the message of condolence to the King,
the Naturalization bill, the printing of Bacon's Collection of Laws, the adop-
tion of the Journal of Accounts, and various measures designed to simplify the
administration of the law. All these questions, and other matters of especial
interest, which came before the Assembly at these six sessions are discussed
in some detail under their several headings in this introduction. It is to be
noted that there is no direct reference in these proceedings to the long stand-
ing Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute then in process of settlement.
Indian affairs were also quiescent. The main events of the six sessions will
first be summarized.

SESSION OF OCTOBER— NOVEMBER, 1758.

Governor Sharpe had suddenly on May 13, 1758, prorogued the session of
the Assembly that had met on March 28, after the Lower House had refused
to enact a Supply bill for His Majesty's Service which was satisfactory to the
Upper House, with the announcement by the Governor that it would be called
together again on June 26. But this Assembly, which had been elected in the
autumn of 1757 and had held three fruitless sessions, was destined not to meet
again, for after two further postponements, the Governor, convinced of the
hopelessness of winning over a majority of the members to any method of
taxation other than an income tax on earnings and an assessment on the value
of estates, upon the advice of his Council on August 31, 1758, issued writs
for the election of a new Assembly, although not over sanguine that the electo-
rate would choose a Lower House that would be less difficult to handle. The
first meeting of the new Assembly was held on October 23, 1758, and although
the popular or anti-Proprietary majority was slightly reduced, it was able during
a life of over three years to thwart the wishes of the Proprietary, the Governor,