ixii Introduction.

£10,000. The loans ranged from twenty pounds to one hundred pounds, only
one being for more than the latter amount. It is of interest that this largest
loan, one for £114:8:4, had been made by Jonas Green, with three of the most
prominent men in the Province as his securities, Daniel Dulany, George Plater,
and Edmund Jennings, and that there was £76: 10: o interest due by him.
Why Jonas Green was so deeply in debt is revealed when we learn from these
Assembly proceedings that his pay as public printer was several years in arrears.
His petition for redress and the act of the Assembly for his "encouragement"
are discussed elsewhere in this introduction (p. ixxii). This list of loans se-
cured by mortgages shows that the back interest due on many of them was
excessive, and in a few instances was actually greater than the amount of the
loan. The total interest due amounted to £2,225, some twenty-two per cent
of the total principal of the loans. The committee commented on this list of
loans saying that it was furnished "to give the Honourable Houses an oppor-
tunity of Judging of the Solvency of the Several Persons and their Securi-
ties .... and how far the commissioners have Complyed with the Directions
of the Acts relative to their duties". This was an obvious slap at the Com-
missioners of the Loan Office for allowing back interest to accumulate to the
extent of twenty-two per cent of the principal. Lists were also furnished of
the sheriffs of certain counties, the country clerks, and the collectors of the
excise who had failed to make returns for the past few years for taxes that
were due to them on various taxable items (pp. 46-55, 171).

In addition to the report of the joint committee of the two houses upon the
affairs of the Loan Office, of which a brief synopsis had just been given,
an address to the Governor, dated April 20, 1762, prepared by a committee of
the Lower House consisting of Thomas Ringgold, Walter Dulany, and William
Hayward, was adopted and presented to the Governor. In this address it was
pointed out that many officers appointed under the £6,000 Supply act of 1754
and the £40,000 Supply act of 1756 had been remiss in their duties and that
effective means should be taken to insure speedy payment of their deficiencies;
that there had been a very unequal collection of excise in the different counties,
and that the collectors should be forced to more action; and that steps should
be taken to recover sundry arrearages in the collection of licenses from ordinaries
due from former sheriffs, some of whom were now dead (p. 172).

On April 24, 1762, Sharpe wrote the Commissioners of the Loan Office
directing them to have printed in the next two Gazettes a notice to all those
who owed more than one year's interest on money on loan, and that if the
back interest were not paid before July i, next, they were to be put in suit.
In the Appendix will be found a list, possibly only fragmentary, addressed to
Governor Sharpe, doubtless by the Loan Office, of mortgage bonds which had
been delivered on September i, 1762, to Reverdy Ghiselin, clerk of the Pro-
vincial Court, to be put in suit. This list gives the names of the principals and
their securities, and the amount of "principal money" due in each case. These
debtors were ten in number. In addition there are similarity listed five debtors
against whom on August 13,1763, Ghiselin was ordered to renew suits on bonds
(pp. 576-577). The Commissioners were ordered by advertisement in the