xii Letter of Transmittal.

to extend the power of the county courts at the expense of the provincial
courts at Annapolis, which were more under the immediate influence of the
Governor than were the more distant local courts. But it may be said in
general that, at this particular moment, the people feared more the threat of
interference in their affairs by King and Parliament than they did Pro-
prietary pretensions.

The finances of the Province, which were in a healthy condition, although
the squabble between the two houses had delayed the payment of the public
debt for which there was money available, occupied the attention of the
Assembly at the 1765 session. Various issues of bills of credit, or paper cur-
rency, were now due. These were paid off out of the sinking funds and a
substantial balance was left over. The Loan Office, which had been created
in 1732 to have charge of these issues and their redemption, and was no longer
necessary, was abolished by an act passed at the November-December, 1765,
session.

The disputed election of one of the delegates to the Lower House from the
City of Annapolis is of considerable interest not only because the delegate was
no less a person than Walter Dulany, Mayor of Annapolis and brother of
Daniel Dulany, but because the evidence shows the high-handed way in
which the election was conducted. Walter Dulany, who had been obliged to
relinquish his seat at the September session because he had accepted an ap-
pointive office under the Proprietary subsequent to his election in 1764, was
again a candidate at a special election, and was returned as reelected and took
his seat at the opening of the November-December session. His election was
contested as irregular. Evidence presented to the Lower House showed that
as Mayor of Annapolis he had presided in the Mayor's Court, before which
body the election was conducted, had challenged voters who offered to vote
against him, and overruled all objections to the qualifications of those who
voted for him. He was unseated, not only because the election was irregular,
but because it was conducted in the absence of the recorder, his brother Daniel,
who had also failed to sign the election return. The unseating of Dulany
presents an interesting side-light on a Maryland election of this period.

Differences between the two houses, which for eight years had prevented the
passage of legislation for the relief of debtors languishing in jail for debt,
were finally compromised and a relief act passed.

What was apparently the second attempt in a Maryland legislature to pass
a fish conservation measure came before this session. Legislation was sought to
prevent the further destruction of fish by weirs and dams on various rivers and
creeks, but it was not until two years later that laws to this end were actually