The Upper House. 97

Eodem Die post Meridiem
This House met according to Adjournment

Present as in the Morning
Adjourned until 10 ^oClock tomorrow Morning

U. H. J.
Liber No. 36
Dec. 18

Thursday Morning December 19..^th 1765
This House met according to Adjournment

Present as Yesterday
The following Message is sent by John Ridout Esquire [to the
Lower House] .
By the Upper House of Assembly 19:^th December 1765
Gentlemen,
The general Question between us is whether the Clerk of the
Council for his Services to the Public shall be allowed in the Journal
the Annual Salary, of Nine Thousand Six hundred Pounds of
Tobacco, payable at the Rate of Twelve Shillings and Six Pence
p Cent, hitherto always Claimed of & paid by the Public, in every
former Journal regulated and assented to by all the Branches of the
Legislature, or whether he shall be allowed nothing in the Journal for
his Services to the Public?
We apprehend, for the Reasons communicated to you in a former
Message, that he ought to receive the whole Salary claimed by him,
and are now to consider the Force of those Arguments you have
thought proper to urge in Support of your Opinion, that he ought
to be allowed no Part of it in the depending Journal. That we may
not lose Sight of the Object of our Enquiry, or be diverted by
incidental Examinations, from that Attention which the Rise and
present State of the Controversy require, we think it necessary to
premise explicitly with what View the Clerk's Account was drawn
up, before we consider with what Propriety you have taken minute
Exceptions to particular Articles in it And by what Reasoning you
attempt to maintain your Objections. Having considered the Clerk
of the Council to be a necessary constitutional Officer & his Services
in this Capacity to be of a general and Public Nature, which you
admit in your Manner by not denying, we conceived that every One
would wilhout Hesitation admit that he ought to be paid by the
Public for the Services he had performed, tho the Reasonableness
of his established Salary might not be so obvious to those who were
not so well apprised as we were of the Duties of his Office and there-
fore as the Message sent from the Lower House in the Year 1756
informed the Upper House "that tho the usual Allowance was made
to M^r Ross in the Journal at that Time, yet they had resolved for the

Dec. 19