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troubling ourselves in Search after or hunting up those Accounts
for we speak from Experience and give this as one Instance that
unjust Claims against the Public are more frequently made than
just Ones are Omitted to be made. The Account however we at last
had so far from making any Punctilio about applying for it this
House repeated the Old refusal to pay lumping Salaries without an
Account of Services and by that Means drew it forth What Sort of
an Account it is pretty clearly appears from what hath been said
before to which this Remark may be added that it seems to have been
drawn up Omissions supplied and Approbation given to it rather
with an Eye to swell the Account than the proper Attention to the
Charges in the Truth and Quantum of them. Your Honours and
Mr Ross were at a good Deal of Useless Trouble in this Business
for when we intimated a Desire of having an Account particularizing
the Services done by him as Clerk of the Council by Direction of
the Laws of this Province we are furnished with an indistinct Ac-
count of Council Proceedings from May 1756 to October 1765 and
the whole Matters we wanted Information about that is the Services
done by the Direction of the Laws of this Province and on which
the Upper House in the Year 1756 seems to found the principal Part
of his Merit are totally omitted in the Account and only mentioned
in a general Lumping Way in a Memdum at the Bottom of it. May
we presume in some Measure to supply the Omission by saying the
only Services done by the Clerk of the Council under Direction of
any Laws of this Province that we know of is his Receipt of Naval
Officers Bonds and the receiving and laying before the Governor
the Recommendations of Inspectors by the Vestries There may
possibly be some such other Trifle but we really know of none and
if there had been any other of any Consequence we suppose Mr Ross
who is so well acquainted with the Duties of Clerk of the Council
would at your Honours Request have enumerated them
Thus then stands the Matter without Regard to Precedent; you
insist that Mr Ross shall have an Allowance in the Journal of 9600.lb
of Tobo p Ann for a Salary as Clk of the Council you contend he
ought to be allowed something from his being a necessary Servant
to those who are entrusted with the executive Powers of Government
and to prove what that something ought to be or for no Purpose that
we know of you have laid his Account of Services before us We
insist that the Account proves the contrary than the purpose to which
it was adduced and we hope have given Satisfactory Reasons for the
Assertion we say too by whom and how the Payment ought to be
made is as necessary to be considered as whether any Payment is to
be made that there is already Money sufficient collected rightfully
or wrongfully alters not the Case for the Support of Government
not only to pay this but every other necessary Expence of Govern-
ment and that the Clerk of the Council being necessary as you inti-
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