ixviii Introduction.

Steuart "found himself under a necessity of acting [this] part, he having Voted
for the Appropriation of Ordinary Lycences toward the Support of a College
in Annapolis lest the Inhabitants his Constituents had he voted otherwise should
have deemed him an Enemy to the City and have rejected him at the next
Election" (Arch. Md. IX, 523). "The House in the City of Annapolis, which
was intended for a Dwelling-House for the Governor of this Province," which
it was proposed to use as a college building, was the house which Governor
Thomas Bladen had begun the construction of in 1744 as the official residence
of the governors of Maryland, and was located on what is now St. John's
College campus. When nearly finished, although the roof was not yet entirely

In place, a controversy at use about the completion of the building, and it was

still unfinished and in a decaying condition when this proposal was made in
1761 to use it for a college. It was popularly known as "Bladen's Folly" and,
it may be added, remained unfinished until in 1784 when it was completed
for the use of St. John's College in that year.

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTS.

The Journal of Accounts, which carried the appropriations for all the ordi-
nary current expenses of the Provincial government, came up as usual for
consideration by the Assembly. The creditors of the government were becom-
ing more and more importunate as the public charges had continued to pile up
since 1756. As explained in the introduction to the previous volume of the
Archives, an impasse between the two houses on the adoption of a Journal of
Accounts had existed since the February-May 1756 session, and no Journal
since then had been approved by both houses (Arch. Md. LV, liv-lv). This
was because the Upper House had insisted upon the inclusion of such items as
the payment of a fixed salary to the Clerk of the Governor's Council (who was
also the clerk of the Upper House), which the Lower House declared should
be paid by the Proprietary himself. Nor was the impasse between the two
houses destined to be broken until the year 1766. As soon as the Lower House
first organized, it appointed on October 29, 1758, a Committee on Accounts,
consisting of six members, of which John Goldsborough was chairman. This
committee selected Beale Nicholson as its clerk, but no mention of a Journal
of Accounts was made at this session (pp. 18, 19). At the November-December
1758 session, the Lower House ordered the Committee on Accounts to receive
no claims against the public "after Friday sev'nnight next, being the 15th
instant", and it was further ordered to "close the Journal of Accounts on
Monday sev'nnight next being the 18th Instant" (p. 91). Nothing further,
however, was heard of the Journal at this session, or at the 1759 session.

On April i, 1760, the Lower House ordered the Committee on Accounts to
close the Journal on the following day (p. 243) but on April 3 the committee
was ordered to make an allowance in the Journal to various "sufferers" whose
tobacco had been lost in a fire at Llewellin's Warehouse, St. Mary's County
(pp. 211, 247-248). On April 8, the Lower House approved the Journal of
Accounts and sent it to the Upper House (pp. 252, 256), where two days
later it was dissented to and returned to the Lower House (p. 224). The