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to, as too rational to admit of any doubt; but it is not enough to
cite true propositions, for this would make controversy endless,
and the pastime only of children, but it is necessary that they should
be applicable to the points in dispute. However, true it may be, that
it is expedient to maintain the necessary powers and just Pre-
rogatives of the Crown, and that it is in vain to negotiate away his
Majesty's Prerogatives, yet, as the Lower House have made no
attempt of this kind, a stanza from the ballad of Chevy Chace,
would have served the purpose of the Upper House full as well,
if their view in inserting it had been fair and honest."

p. 143

It is agreed, that all the inhabitants of Maryland readily assent
to the first part of the foregoing passage; and the application of
the latter part very plainly appears true, from what has already been
said upon that subject.
I now proceed to the Remarker's propositions, Why the Upper
House did not attempt to reform what to them appeared exception-
able in the supply bill, which the Lower House offered in 1762, in-
stead of returning it with a negative. I think proper to observe, that
to a bill of the same nature offered in the year 1758, the Upper
House had expressly made more than thirty objections, as may be
seen in the Lower House's Journals of April 1758, (pages 26 to
32,) and that since the bill in question, except in a few instances
only, was liable to the very same objections, the pointing them out
again by a message was not likely to answer any other end, but to
engage the two Houses in new warm disputes, and, by protracting
the Session, much encrease the public debt. — In consequence of a
proposal made in 1758, by the Upper House, in order, I conceive, if
possible to bring about the passing the bill then depending, a con-
ference was held between the two Houses, on the many objections
which the Upper House had made to it; and as there were four

p. 144

of them which the Lower House had thought fit to consider as most
material points, it was agreed by the conferees, that these four
should be first taken into consideration. The first of them related
to the nomination of the Commissioners, who were to have power
of controlling the assessors, and ascertaining the tax each person
should pay. The second of them related to the double tax proposed
to be laid upon Non-jurors; the third of them to the tax upon
offices, and the fourth to a tax upon his Lordship's quit-rents. The
plan of the bill being extremely different from that of every money-
bill that passed into a law since the first settlement of the Province,
new officers called Commissioners and Assessors, were to be ap-
pointed in each county, in order to carry the act into execution, and
as the Upper House did not think it reasonable, (especially at a
time, as by information, when great pains had been taken by many
Members in the Lower House, to represent both the Proprietor and
the Members of the Upper House in an odious light) that both