Appendix. 435

rogatives? The utmost it can amount to is, that the Lower House
by their bill, infringed the parliamentary rights of the other branches,
in not admitting them to an equal share in the nomination of com-
missioners," because, says he, "it is unreasonable for one branch

Contempo-
rary Printed
Pamphlet
Md.Hist.Soc.

of the legislature to assume a power of taxing the other by officers
of their single appointment.
"This I say can have no relation to any thing, but the Parlia-
mentary priviledge in this instance, reciprocally subsisting between the
several branches, and can, by no torture of expression, be construed
to extend to an invasion of the prerogative, which is always exercised
independently of either branch. — I cannot help making one remark
upon an expression in the opinion of the attorney-general, and that is
the word unreasonable, applied to the conduct of the Lower House.
One would have thought, that a person, who is so peculiarly obliged
by the duties of his office, to guard the prerogatives of his Majesty, in
animadverting upon a passage, which the Upper House must make
the basis of their charge, would have made use of an epithet better
adapted to that spirit of undutifulness and disloyalty, which their
Honours have so freely imputed to the Lower House, had there
been in his opinion the least occasion for it.''

p. 98

The Upper House insists upon being equal, as to the appointment
of commissioners, to which the Lower House dispute their consent.
The reader will here be pleased to have recourse back to the public
papers concerning supplies, inserted in this discourse, viz. the Lower
House's messages of the 9th and 16th April, 1762, and the Upper
House's messages of the 13th and 24th April, 1762. These public
exhibitions of both Houses of Assembly will thoroughly inform him
of the conceptions and proofs alledged by both Houses, in regard
to the right and manner of raising supplies for his Majesty's
service, and I likewise insert his Majesty's attorney-general's opin-
ion, entire extracted from the printed proceedings in 1760, of the
Lower House, relative to taxation; these circumstances will throw
a light upon the whole, and evidently shew, that the absurd, unjust,
unequal and oppressive assessment by the bill proposed by the Lower
House for his Majesty's service, was an unwarrantable plan, and
an invasion of his Majesty's prerogatives and the people's liberties,
thrown into the hands of the Lower House by their unconstitutional

p. 99

bill, and their claim to the rights of a British House of Commons, i. e.
the Lex Parliamenti.
The opinion of his Majesty's attorney-general:
As to the nomination of officers by the Lower House;
In my opinion the sole nomination of these commissioners, who
are new officers appointed by this bill, belongs neither to the Pro-
prietary nor to the Lower House, stricto jure; but, like all other
new regulations, must be assented to by both, but can be claimed by
neither. The Proprietary's charter intitles him to nominate all

p. 100