Appendix. 439

Shall not these and many other acts of the like importance and
tendency towards the good of the Province, perpetually exercised
by the Proprietor, stop the libelling pen of any anonymous writer?
Shall he, or a junto of a few wou'd-be popular, self-interested,
ambitious and ill-designing men, carry their pernicious schemes, so
far into execution, as to be able, by their false negatives, quotations,
and assertions, to exclude men of strict virtue, justice, and honour ?
No! The good of the whole, established by law and reason, will
take care to baffle all attempts of this kind, whenever made by all
the co-operating powers of a weak, restless, discontented few.

Contempo-
rary Printed
Pamphlet
Md.Hist.Soc.

Concerning the tonnage duty to the Lord Proprietor, which from
my commerce with the Province, I find, has been unfairly repre-
sented by some in the Province and here, insinuating, that the duty
per ton on shipping, is a fort duty and not belonging to the Lord
Proprietor; I shall easily rectify this false notion, and undeniably
prove this duty to be solely for the benefit of the Lord Proprietor.
In order to which, I need only quote some extracts from a copy I
have seen of the report made after tryal at the court of Whitehall,
the 23d of February, 1692, Present the King's most excellent Maj-
esty, &c.
"As to the second demand of fourteen pence per ton, for all
tobaccos exported out of that Province, I find by an act of the
Assembly of that Province in 1661, it was enacted, that all vessels
whatsoever not properly belonging to this Province, having a deck
flush fore and aft, coming in and trading within that Province,
should pay for port duties and anchorage, a pound of powder and
three pounds of shot, or so much in value for every burthen to the

p. 113

said Proprietor and his heirs; which duty hath by usage been turned
into money, viz. fourteen pence per ton, and so answered to Lord
Baltimore, and constantly applied to his own use, and not to the
support of Government, as the Lord Baltimore affirms to me; and
by order of Council of the 26th February, 1690, this duty of four-
teen pence per ton was directed to be answered to the Lord Baltimore
as Proprietor of the Province, and likewise instructions given to
Colonel Copely, Governor of Maryland, to permit the Lord Balti-
more, or his agents, to receive the same, without any disturbance
or interruption; and I conceive upon the words of the act, this duty
doth belong to my Lord Baltimore as Proprietor, to be received by
him to his own use; and it would be a thing of dangerous conse-
quence, to admit of parole proof of an intention in the law makers
different from the words of law, to say, that the duty, and it seems
to be admitted by the Assembly, that this duty of fourteen pence
per ton doth by law now belong to the Lord Baltimore, by desiring

p. 114

their Majesties Royal assent to an act to invest in their Majesties, &c."
November 2d, 1692.
Copy. Thomas Trevor.
33

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