The Upper House. 101

toms, which in this Instance were proper, and 50 Proclamations
were actually issued according to the Article of Charge. If you are
since the Perusal of our Message, at a Loss why we took it to be
agreed that a salary to the Clerk is the most Convenient Satisfaction,
and that the salary of 9,600^lb of Tobacco or 60 Pounds Currency p
Annum is a moderate Allowance, it is not in our Power to explain
that Matter more fully. When you allowed the Clerk might merit
some Salary for his Services, and did not propose or recommend
any other Method of Recompense and tho you would not undertake
to ascertain that Salary, yet as you did not object to it except in
Respect of the Manner of the Payment, what other reasonable
Inferrence could we make? what less offensive? would it have
better pleased you to have given your Message in this Particular
the Epithet Evasive? If you thought it an useless Consideration
what Kind or Measure of Recompense the Clerk merited, why was
his Account required ? was it required because there was any Doubt
whether it would be exhibited? or was it merely to satisfy an un-
profitable Curiosity ?
If the Stress we have laid on the Account, has prompted or pro-
voked your Strictures, we have little Reason to repent of having

U. H. J.
Liber No. 36
Dec. 19

taken that Step, since in the full Discussion of the Subject of our
Controversy, it will undeniably appear to every Sensible and impartial
Man, that we are only contending for the Allowance of a Claim,
which the Obligations of Justice and a Regard to the Public Faith
have called upon us to support, & this we shall always firmly do,
whether it may or may not entitle us to Popular Applause, often,
very often bestowed upon those who the least, & withheld from
those who the most deserve it. We have considered the salary as a
very moderate Allowance, and tho', by the Accumulation of many
Years Arrears, you seem solicitous to present it to the Public View
as a grievous Oppression, yet in Fact the Annual Salary would not
at this Time, and much less in the future Increase of the People,
Amount to One Farthing Current Money p Poll. We have little
Satisfaction from the Account you are pleased to annex, for other
Reasons than the very obliging One of consulting our Ease, and
we must be so plain as to tell you, that if the Discovery of Truth
or the Establishment of Justice were your real as much as your
declared View, you would not endeavour to give an Impression by
an Account founded on the most egregious Disregard of Facts, a
Method of Deception the most likely to ensnare the Inattentive, and
we can't but observe, that your stating the Account from M^r Ross's
Appointment to the Office of Clerk of the Council, & charging Him
for what he has received beyond your Ideas of a Quantum Meruit
to a Constitutional Officer Altho All he received he had an indubitable
Right to under express and positive Laws, enacted by as prudent &
able Legislators as yourselves is but an indifferent Specimen of that

p. 281