xxx Introduction.

The Lower House on April 5 appointed a committee of five headed by
Walter Dulany to serve on a joint committee with Benedict Calvert of the
Upper House to inspect and report upon the condition of the Loan Office
(pp. 223, 296). The first report of this joint committee which was presented
on October 14 was followed by another on November 24. These reports, show-
ing as they did large debts to that office long overdue and unpaid, resulted
in certain repercussions which will be discussed more fully under Loan Office
affairs (pp. ix-lxiv, 271.276, 312.313, 406-407).

The Committee on Accounts also were charged with keeping an eye on the
treasurers of the two shores, and on the naval officers who collected certain
export duties. The Lower House on October 13 took cognizance of the fact
that the treasurers "have omitted for some time to render acc^ts of the money
by them received for the use of the public", and the Committee on Accounts
was ordered to make a report when these accounts had last been filed (p. 309).
In a report on the condition of the Loan Office, dated October 14, 1763, the
committee declared that the two treasurers had made no reports for several
years although the increase in the number of negro slaves imported during
the last four years indicated that there must be considerable sums of public
money due the Province by the two treasurers for duties on negroes, which
had been deposited with them (pp. 312, 313). On October 25, 1763, this com-
mittee was directed, that at the time it reported to the Lower House as to
when the treasurers had made their last reports, there be also included a report
as to when the naval officers had done so (p. 333). On November 22, the
committee reported that Charles Hammond, Treasurer of the Western Shore,
and Colonel Edward Lloyd, Treasurer of the Eastern Shore, had recently ren-
dered their accounts down to October, 1763 (p. 391). Nor does any report seem
to have been made about the accounts of naval officers.

Under the act of May, 1756, appropriating £40,000 for His Majesty's
Service, familiarly known as the £40,000 Supply bill, three agents, namely,
William Murdock, James Dick, and Daniel Wolstenholme, had been appointed
to carry out the terms of that law (Arch. Md. LII; 488). Supplementary
supply acts passed at the September-October, 1756, the April-May, 1757,
and the September-December, 1757, sessions, had also made these same men
agents to put these several later acts into effect (Arch. Md. LII; 650-656:
LV; 125, 402.408). At the October-November, 1763, session, the Lower
House appointed a committee headed by Charles Grahame, to examine the
accounts of the agents under the supply bills which do not seem to have been
examined for several years. This committee reported on November 24, and
its report showed various small sums still due to the agents and the names of
a number of persons who have not yet paid monies due by them, but the report
does not criticize the agents or suggest that they had not properly performed
their duties (pp. 343, 399, 401).

When the Journal of Accounts was brought before the Assembly at the
1763 session it met with the same fate that it had met for the last seven years.
Passed by the Lower House, it was promptly rejected in the upper chamber.
At this session, however, the causes for its rejection were brought more into