448 Appendix.

Contempo-
rary Printed
Pamphlet
Md.Hist.Soc.
p. 137

be more at large at present, (from proprietary injunctions mean-
ing) than heretofore, with respect to the proprietary estate, and the
great offices of the Government. But notwithstanding the ab-
struseness of this passage, I shrewdly suspect it is better understood
than the Gentlemen choose to acknowledge, and that their ignorance
of its meaning is nothing but pretence; why else such a train of
thundering angry questions, which I shall give from their message,
with suitable answers, en passant? &c."
The whole of this will appear at first sight a glaring insult upon
the Proprietor, the Upper House, good manners, common sense, and
logical reasoning, and you will find, Sir, the matter of the maxim
aforesited fully discussed by Message and Answer, contained in the
two public papers printed in this discourse, from the Journals of the
Assembly in 1762, stiled the Upper and Lower House, &c. which
papers will give light enough for any one to determine which of
the two Houses has the better of the argument.
He says, page 64, [p. 404] "The charge they seem peculiarly fond
of, (the Upper House) and which they have often repeated in the
course of their declamation, is, that a wicked majority have en-

p. 138

deavoured to establish an absolute power upon the ruins of his
Majesty's Prerogatives; with this honest view, it may fairly be sup-
posed, to let his Majesty's Ministry at home see what staunch and
loyal subjects they are, and that the Lower House are composed of
men of traiterous and rebellious principles, &c." The conclusion in
the above paragraph is merely conjectural, and cannot by any means
be drawn from the premises: it is as unfair and ungentleman like,
as it is forced and strained, through a supposition only of an in-
vidious and malicious author.
The Earl of Loudon's Letter, dated New-York, December 3Oth,
1757, to the Governor of Maryland, in the printed Votes of the
Lower House in 1762.
Sir,

I Had this day the favour of your letter by express, with the bill
prepared by the Lower House, and the address from both Houses
to you. As I had seen an extract of the military part of that bill
before, I am ready to give my sentiments on it; and am clearly of

p. 139

opinion, that had it passed into a law of the Province, it would have
been a direct infringement of the King's undoubted Prerogative,
and as such, was very wisely rejected by the Upper House; at the
same time, I am willing to believe, that the Assembly had not con-
sidered it in that light, or they never would have framed it in that
manner; nor had they considered that right of the King of com-
manding his subjects in arms, which is a right undisputed every
where, or they would never have disputed the power of his com-
mission, to have marched his troops, raised by them for the defence
of his dominions, even out of your Province, which I do not under-