Introduction. xxi

bearing on various matters in controversy between the two houses. The King
and his ministers therefore knew all (pp. 80-81).

On April 17, when the Supply bill was finally out of the way, the Lower
House replied to the Governor's message of March 20, and this it did at length
and with acrimony. In its message to Sharpe the house declared that the
failure of the King's ministers to understand why the various supply bills
had been rejected was due to the fact that.^the people had no agent in London
who could present to the Crown their side in their controversies with the
Proprietary (pp. 138-143). The spirited reply, dated April 23, of the Governor
to the Lower House, covers in detail most of the questions in dispute between
the two houses in relation to the Supply bill, and reviews very thoroughly what
transpired in 1757 and 1758 between the houses and the opinion of Attorney-
General Pratt that the bill was unconstitutional (pp. 157-170). In those
sections of this introduction dealing with the Supply, or Assessment bill
(pp. xxxviii-xlvi), and with the attempt of the Lower House to secure a support
for an Agent in London (pp. xlvi-xlviii), further attention will be given to
this message.

The attention of the Assembly at the 1762 session was called by the Governor
to the wretched condition of the public buildings at Annapolis. A joint com-
mittee of the two houses reported that it had found in especially bad repair
the Commissary's Office, the Council Office, the Court House, the Parade, the
Loan Office, and the Conference Chamber, which needed plastering, glazing,
new roofing and flooring. It also reported that the bookshelves needed divisions
to prevent damage to the record books and papers then deposited in them. The
committee seems to have been authorized to contract for the expenditure of
a sum not over £200, to be taken from the Treasurer [of the Western Shore]
for that purpose (pp. 26, 27, 30, 39, 56, 136). It does not appear, however,
that these repairs were carried out, for at the next session, 1763, the matter
came up again and an ordinance was passed appropriating £300 for repairs
to public buildings, a sum which the representatives of the Upper House felt
was insufficient (pp. 387, 396, 398).

The condition of the public records was also a matter of concern. At the
1763 session on the motion of Colonel Edward Tilghman, the Lower House
ordered that in future a committee be appointed on the third day of each
session to inspect the records and papers in the public offices and report on their
condition with a list of all the books in the several offices (pp. 320, 321).

Important legislation, if of a general character, was usually initiated through
a motion made by one of the leaders in the Lower House, that a committee,
either a standing or special committee, be ordered to "bring in a bill" for some
designated purpose. Such a bill might require considerable time to prepare,
or it might have been prepared in advance and be ready for immediate intro-
duction. Legislation, especially if local or "private" in character, was often
initiated by petitions addressed to the Governor, or to the Governor and the
Assembly. These petitions were in most cases first presented in the Upper
House, which usually without acting upon them, referred them to the Lower
House. Occasionally, however, the Upper House rejected them without refer-