Introduction. ixix

reasons for this dissent are not stated in the proceedings, but the failure of
the Lower House to include the salary of the Clerk of the Council and Upper
House and back pay to the militia ordered out in the last two years were cer-
tainly items of contention.

The adoption of the Journal of Accounts came up again at the April-May
1761 session. On April 20 it was ordered that it be closed two days later (p.
452). On April 29 it was given by the Committee on Accounts to the Speaker
(p. 469), approved by the house a few days later, and sent to the Upper House
(p. 487). There Samuel Chamberlaine and Benedict Calvert were appointed
to inspect and report upon it (pp. 430, 431). After selecting John Davidson
as their clerk, this committee reported on May 6 that it had found many
omissions in the Journal: that there was no allowance for Mr. Ross as clerk
of the Governor's Council, or for the judges of the Court of Appeals from
1760 to the present time; no allowances for paying the militia ordered out by
the Governor since the fall of 1757; no allowance of £21—3—0 for the re-
pairs made to the Council House; and doubtless "many Others omitted of
which we have no Information". The committee had requested Mr. Beale
Nicholson, clerk of the Lower House committee of accounts, to submit to
them the same accounts which had been laid before his committee. To this
request the clerk of the Lower House committee replied that he was not per-
mitted to deliver the papers requested. The Upper House thereupon resolved
that it would in future allow no accounts to pass unless the originals, or copies
attested before a magistrate, be submitted, and the rejected Journal was
returned to the Lower House. It was further ordered that this resolve be
printed by Mr. Green in six succeeding Gazettes (pp. 433-435). It was re-
jected by the Upper House on the last day of the session (p. 497). No Journal
of Accounts was agreed upon and assented to by both houses until 1766 when
what amounted to an uprising of the creditors of the Province forced the
passage of a compromise Journal. In the opinion given by Charles Pratt,
Attorney-General of the Crown, to the Lord Proprietary in 1759 on the consti-
tutionality of certain measures put forward by the Lower House, he declared
that the Upper House had the power to examine and approve all claims and
accounts, and that this power did not vest in the lower chamber alone (p. 203).

LOAN OFFICE.

Popularly known as the Loan Office, this important agency of the Pro-
vincial government, in charge of commissioners designated originally by an
act of the Assembly passed in 1733 and their successors since then apparently
appointed by the Governor, was officially styled by the Upper House as "the
Commissioners of the Paper Currency Office", and by the Lower House as
"the Office of the Commissioners for Emitting Bills of Credit". The Loan
Office had been established under the Paper Currency act of 1733 to secure
the issue of £90,000 of bills of credit redeemable in thirty years, to be used
as a paper currency circulating medium. The law provided that to secure this
issue a sinking fund should be established. Various taxes, as well as a special
fifteen pence export duty on tobacco per hogshead, were to be used to amortize