xviii Introduction.

real and personal, and lucrative offices and employments". This was the same
"assessment" method of taxation which had already caused the rejection of
the bill four times previously by the Upper House, and which it well knew
would again result in its rejection (p. 27). This bill is discussed in further
detail in a later section (pp. xliii-xliv).

The Governor, in digust at the unwarranted attempt to throw out the votes
of the aldermen of Annapolis cast at the recent election for delegates to the
Assembly, and as a gesture of his disapproval, on November 4 prorogued the
session, or "convention of the Assembly" as the Upper House called it, for
a period of three days until November 7, but subsequently extended this date
until November 20 (pp. 30-35). Sharpe writing to Cecilius Calvert under
dates of November 28 and December 10, 1758, after the Assembly had re-
convened, said that the mayor and aldermen by petition had represented to
him that the Lower House in order to turn Dr. George Steuart out had de-
nied the right of the aldermen to vote, and that acting upon the advice of the
Council, he had twice prorogued the Assembly and that he now believed that
the house was weakening and that the right of the aldermen to vote would
be maintained (Arch. Md. IX; 304, 310). The matter did come up again at
the following session but was soon allowed to drop.

A committee which had been appointed to advise the Lower House what
laws were about to expire by time limitation, reported by title eight such acts
(pp. 28-29). As no legislation of any kind was passed at this "convention"
of the Assembly they came before the next session and were then acted upon.

SESSION OF NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1758.

The session, or "convention", of the Assembly which Sharpe had on No-
vember 4 prorogued in disgust, because it had busied itself with little but an
attempt to unseat Dr. George Steuart of Annapolis on frivolous grounds, and
had shown no disposition to present a Supply bill which had the least chance
of passage in the Upper House, was called together on November 22. In his
opening speech to the November-December 1758 Assembly, the Governor made
no reference to the reasons which had caused him to bring the previous session
to a sudden end, but assigned as the cause for again calling them together
the receipt of a letter from General Forbes then on the march to the Ohio.
In this letter Forbes asked that measures be immediately taken for the se-
curity of the Province and the two neighboring colonies, and told how far
it was expected that "the Inhabitants of this Province .... will Contribute" for
military purposes (p. 39). This letter from Forbes, dated at Ray's Town Camp,
[Pa.J October 22, 1758, referred to his continued precarious state of health
and his inability to progress because the roads had not dried out sufficiently
for the last division of his troops to march. While unwilling to speculate upon
the success of his expedition to the west, he declared that "it is necessary to
Leave as Large and Extensive a Barrier as Possible to cover the frontier of
Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the Number of the King's Troops
that I have under my Command does not exceed twelve Hundred men, the