liv Introduction.

factions in the Lower House. Philip Hammond, a former Speaker, was one of
the most aggressive and truculent leaders of the popular party, and evidently
still a power in the house as he was a member of all the important committees.
Samuel Wilson was a delegate from Somerset, the southernmost Eastern Shore
county, and one which sent a delegation that voted solidly with the Proprietary
party. From the Lower House journal we have no means of judging the
justification for the bitter verbal attack made in such a sarcastic manner by
Wilson upon Hammond. That the charges went undented, and that Wilson had
the support of the leaders of the Proprietary party, indicates that there may
have been some basis for them, as does the fact that Wilson was so relentlessly
punished by the popular majority. No reference to the affair is to be found
in the Sharpe correspondence.

On the afternoon of December 9, while the Assessment, or Supply bill, was
under discussion the Speaker ordered the sergeant-at-arms "to desire the gentle-
men in the porch to walk in". Wilson sent "his services to Mr. Speaker and
tell him that I am tired of such nonsense". It was then related by a member
that on the first reading of the Supply bill when the Speaker left the chair for
a few minutes, Wilson, who had in a bantering way suggested to another mem-
ber that he take the chair, then "turned towards Mr. Hammond, a member
of this house and said, there's Mr. Hammond had the Chair once and forfeited
it; upon which Mr. Hammond said to Mr. Wilson, Forfeited it! How ? to which
Mr. Wilson replied smilingly, I suppose you don't want me to explain myself"
(p. 92). Four days later Wilson was asked by the house for an explanation
of his words about the Speaker and the house. After he replied he was requested
to withdraw and the house by a vote of 25 to 22, the members of the Proprietary
party voting in the negative, decided that he was deserving of censure; where-
upon he reappeared in the house and declared that he had no intention of
reflecting upon the Speaker or the house. His submission was accepted, and
he was admonished in the future to be more circumspect in his expressions
about the orders of the chair and the proceedings of the house.

Wilson's remarks about his fellow-member Philip Hammond "here's Mr.
Hammond had the chair once and forfeited it", then came up for considera-
tion. It will be recalled that Hammond had been Speaker of the lower House,
from 1749 to 1754. Upon the question that Wilson be allowed to "justify his
words" "by relating a private Transaction between the said Hammond and
another Person, in Relation to their private Affairs", the house voted 30 to 15
against it; and another motion that the house would allow any of its members
to state the case and "make good the Truth thereof" was voted down 34 to n.
When the motion was put that Wilson ask pardon of the house and Hammond,
the house divided 23 to 23, and the Speaker decided the question by his affirma-
tive vote (p. 98). This close vote indicates that several members of the popular
party must have felt that Wilson's personal attack upon Hammond was not
without some justification. Again called before the house, Wilson expressed his
readiness to apologize to it, but declared '"as to asking the Pardon of Mr.
Hammond, I look upon him to be a Person of so very infamous a Character,
and charged with so many vices, that I cannot suffer my Lips to belie my Heart,