Introduction. xxxv

of such a bill by adopting a series of resolves (pp. 364-365) as to what the
act would provide for, which were substantially the same items named in the
bill rejected at the last session, except that the number of men to be levied,
fixed in committee of the whole, was now reduced to two hundred. The amount
of money to be raised was fixed at £32,000 (p. 370), this to be derived by
an assessment upon estates and lucrative offices and employments (pp. 365-
366). The bill was passed by the small vote of 20 to 13, and sent to its doom
in the Upper House, where it was immediately rejected after one reading (p.
346). Thus for the seventh time did the Assessment bill fail to pass. Its
course at this session is traced in greater detail in a later section of this intro-
duction (pp. xlviii-xlix).

A successful attempt was made at this session to relieve landholders of the
additional tax on land which was about to be automatically imposed under
the £40,000 Supply bill of 1756 to make good a deficiency in its sinking fund.
It will be recalled that a previous attempt to do this had been made at the
last session but failed because of an impasse between the two houses. It was
again proposed to continue for a longer period the various taxes imposed under
the old act so as to further reduce the deficiency before applying the additional
land tax. The Lower House bill extended the act of 1756 for three years, an
extension felt by the other house to be too long, and provided that payment
of the taxes might be made in specie at a ratio to the Provincial paper cur-
rency which the Upper House thought was unsound. There were also differ-
ences of opinion as to the method of appointing commissioners to carry out
the act. A compromise was finally effected fixing the period for the extension
of the law at two years, and so anxious were the members of the Lower House
to save themselves from the additional land tax that they acquiesced in the
other two amendments made in the Upper House and the bill became a law
(PP. 336-339, 357, 361, 374-375, 386-390). This matter is discussed in
greater detail in another section (pp. ixii-lxiii).

A bill was introduced in the Lower House at this session for the publication
of Thomas Bacon's Collection of Laws, and passed on October 15, 1760. It
was rejected in the Upper House because the appointment of those who were
to determine what acts were to be included and to see the book through the
press, were, under the bill, to be selected by the Lower House (pp. 379, 383,
384). It was then ordered by the Lower House to be printed in the Maryland
Gazette of Annapolis (Appendix pp. 514-516). The long drawn out con-
troversy between the two houses about the publication of Bacon's Laws is
reviewed elsewhere in this introduction (pp. ixxi-lxxiii).

On October 2 Governor Sharpe, in another message to both houses, stated
that Lord Colville, Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's fleet in the St.
Lawrence, was shipping to Maryland a number of French prisoners, most of
them soldiers, who must be provided for here until arrangements could be
made to send them to England (pp. 342-343, 362-363). With the message
the Governor enclosed three separate letters from Colville, all dated from
Northumberland at Quebec, July 25, 1760. These letters from Colville show
that the ships Nettleton, Prince Frederick, and Volunteer had sailed carrying