Introduction. ixiii

Gazette to notify all sheriffs and others who were indebted to the Loan Office
for taxes or duties which ought to have been collected before March 25 last,
that if balances due from them were not paid by July 15, they would be sued
(Arch. Md. XIV; 59).

At the 1763 session the Lower House appointed ten of its members to serve
on the joint committee of both houses to inspect the accounts and proceedings
of the Loan Office. Walter Dulany's name headed the list of Lower House
representatives and Benedict Calvert, who represented the Upper House, was
made chairman of the committee (pp. 223, 296). This committee submitted
a lengthy report on November 24. This report separates the accounts of Iron
Chest Number i and Iron Chest Number 2. Number i as of November, 1763,
contained £21,481: 5: of. The paper money in this chest had not been actually
counted because of the illness of Colonel Charles Hammond, one of the com-
missioners of the Loan Office. There was still £686: 14: 6 owing to the sinking
fund under the acts of 1746 for His Majesty's Service for the Canada Expe-
dition; and £6,475: 16:84 principal and £817: 14: nf interest was due to
the Office on funds loaned on mortgages on land, showing a considerable reduc-
tion in the loans and interest described more fully in the report on the condition
of the Loan Office for 1762. Then follows the list of sheriffs who were
indebted to the Office for money collected on ordinary licenses, but not yet paid
over by them to the Loan Office. In Iron Chest Number 2 the committee
destroyed £10,573: 16:6 additional paper money accumulated in the sinking
fund to further extinguish the currency issued under the £40,000 Supply bill of
1756. The destruction of this paper money left a balance in this Chest of
£3,109: 18: 10 (pp. 271, 276).

The accounts of the trustees in London, appointed under the terms of the
£90,000 Paper Currency Act of 1733, dated April 29, 1762, showed that
there was belonging to the Province in the hands of these trustees Capital
Stock of the Bank of England of £35,000 par value, which had cost £44,495:
12: 6, and an uninvested balance of £230: 7: 2. There then follows a long list
of delinquent sheriffs, collectors of excise, collectors of the land tax, and county
clerks in the various counties, who have failed to pay into the Loan Office taxes
due on bachelors, wheel carriages, billiard tables, ordinary licenses, land taxes,
and excise taxes, for 1763 and previous years (pp. 271, 275).

In a separate report made a short time later the committee went further
into the condition of the sinking funds securing the issue of this £90,000 of
paper money, and of the £40,000 Supply bill of 1756. The paper money act
of 1733 provided that the export tax on tobacco shipped out of the Province
be sent by the naval officers who collected it to the trustees in London, to be
invested by them in Bank of England stock. The report showed this fund to
be in satisfactory condition, and that the income from the Bank of England
stock yielded interest of £1,600 per annum. The report also showed that there
were various other funds in the Loan Office at Annapolis to the account of
other sinking funds. A report was also made on the condition of the sinking
fund set aside under the £40,000 Supply bill of 1756, showing that this sinking
fund was now overpaid. The report also noted that no accounts had been