106 Assembly Proceedings, November 1-December 20, 1765.

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

most laudible Motives. Your Claim to an Allowance is indubitably
a just One, and the Proposition we made proceeded not from any
Opinion that you are not entitled to the legal Satisfaction of it, had
the Journal passed without M^r Ross's Allowance, it would have
been an effectual & irrevocable Rejection of it. The usual Manner of
paying it was in the Journal with your Allowance, and as we appre-
hend that His & Yours ought to have been paid together, we pro-
posed that they should still go together, and tho we did not think that
other Claims were more just than his or yours, yet out of Tender-
ness to the Distresses of many of the Public Creditors, who had
done nothing to obstruct the Passage of the Journal, we signified
our Consent that they should be paid immediately, and you must
in general approve of our Tenderness, tho' you may not so easily
forgive an Expedient, which did not regard your Convenience, with
so much Favor as it did theirs. Considering all the Claims to be
just we objected to any Distinction between them, when it did not
appear to be necessary for the Relief of the Distressed; but since
we find that the Passage of the Journal this Session hath become
desperate, we are now willing to pass your Bill for the Payment of
the Expences incurred on Account of the late War, and hope you
will not alter your Opinion of the peculiar Hardships of the Claim-
ants, and of the Compassion they are entitled to, because we are
desirous that they may be immediately satisfied.
If our Answer to your Message is rather desultary, the Want
of Method in yours, which may be justly imputed to the Straitness
of the Time in which these Matters are composed, and the same
Reason subsisting in our Case, as well as the Difficulty in turning to
old Journals, on a sudden Occasion, will excuse it.

p. 286

The Allowance Claimed by the Council, and by their Clerk stood
upon different Grounds, the former were provided for by an express
Law, and the latter upon the same Principal that the Allowance
to the Clerks of the two Houses and their Committees. When the
Provision made for the Members of the Council by Act of Assembly
ceased, then the Practice began of giving them Allowances in the
Journal, for their Attendance, it was what the Council thought they
were in Equity entitled to, and what the Lower House in the Year
1736, agreed they should receive after that Time, but this Agree-
ment tho accompanied with the plainest Assurances not being estab-
lished by a positive Law, was afterwards held not to be binding, and
after many Contests & on Consideration of the Inconvenience arising
from them, the Council consented that no Claim of Allowance on
their Behalf should any longer obstruct the Payment of any other
Public Creditors; but tho they gave up their own Claim, they
firmly asserted the Right of their Clerk, and the Lower House
admitted it. Besides that, the Attendance of any Member of the
Council is not so strictly requisite as to interfere with his other