Introduction. ivii

The Lower House, alert to attack anyone holding a prominent office by
favor of the Lord Proprietary, and especially so when such an officer was
suspected of being a Roman Catholic, issued an order on April 27 to its
sergeant-at-arms to serve a summons on Henry Darnall to appear before that
house on April 30 to give satisfaction as to his neglect of duty as Naval Officer
(p. 465). This officer reported on the 27th that on the previous day "Mr.
Darnall not being at home he left a copy of the Summons" (p. 470). In an
address to the Governor, dated May 2 and enclosing an extract from the re-
port of the joint committee, the house requested that the Governor take "the
most effectual steps" to recover the money and immediately remove from office
Darnall who, it said, had embezzled large sums of public money. It also re-
minded the Governor of the ineffectual remonstrances it had made against
this gentleman a few years before (July 2, 1755), when he was Attorney-
General of the Province (Arch. Md. LII, xvii-xviii, 159-160), and declared
that "we shall only just intimate that the Objections that were then made to
him receive some Support from his corrupt Practices in the Office he fills
at present", and warned the Governor hereafter to be more careful of the
character of his appointees (pp. 484-486). The Lower House estimated the
amount embezzled to be £1,972—4—0, a sum larger by nearly £400 than the
amount estimated by the Governor a few days before (p. 520). The amount
stolen was later estimated at an even larger figure. A motion to request the
Governor to remove Benjamin Young as Naval Officer of Pocomoke, who was
slightly in arrears in his remittances to the trustees in London, was defeated
by a vote of 29 to 7 (p. 478). It appears that Walter Dulany, a brother-in-law
of Young, and a member of the joint committee which had unearthed the
delinquencies of the naval officers, had promptly made good the amount due
by Young (Arch. Md. IX, 515).

In a hot reply to the Lower House, the Governor declared that their objection
to Darnall "when he was carpt at some years ago" was his supposed attachment
to the principles of the Church of Rome, although he had complied with every
test as to his conformity to the established church, and the house had not inti-
mated that he wanted the other requisites necessary to fill that office which he
had held before Sharpe had come into Maryland; and added that, if the Lower
House had reason to suspect Darnall's honesty, it had neglected its duties
by not calling this to his attention and by making a careful examination of his
accounts as Naval Officer and of the accounts of the trustees in London. He
said that he hardly dared to intimate that by neglecting this duty they had
"connived" at an embezzlement of over £2,000 in order "that you may have
an opportunity of saying [so] at this time". He also protested against the
injustice of the intimation that he had ever been influenced in his appointments
by other motives than for the good of the community (pp. 490-492). The Gov-
ernor also requested the Lower House to enter in its journal the address of
the Upper House to him on the Darnall defalcation, the entire report of the
joint committee, of which it had sent him only an extract, his letter to the
Attorney-general and the latter's reply, his message of April 30 to the Upper
House and their answer thereto, his second letter to the Attorney-General and