xviii Introduction.

Sharpe says he was urged to call the Assembly together, opened on Septem-
ber 3.

Although the popular demand for a meeting of the Assembly was undoubt-
edly strong it was not until some two months after the assembly had met that
the Lower House on December 13 saw fit to lay before the Governor, doubtless
"for the record", a formal "Remonstrance" or address, protesting against his
long delay in calling the Assembly together. Reminding him that the Gover-
nor alone had the power of convening and proroguing assemblies, the message
declared: "The unhappy Prevalence of the small Pox from the Month of
March [1765] to that of Sept.^r last, rendred a Convention of Assembly within
that Time impracticable but we are ignorant of any Reasons that could Occa-
sion the long Intervention from Nov/ 1763 to last March [1765] within which
Time Circumstances of a peculiar Nature required a Meeting of Assembly
which was prevented by repeated Prorogations". A protest was then registered
by the house as the "Representatives of the free People" against this long
delay, "at a Time so very critical to the Rights of America at a Time when
the good People of this Province ardently wished for an Opportunity to express
by their Representatives in the Assembly their Sense of a Scheme then enter-
tained by the British House of Commons of imposing Stamp Duties on the
Colonies and for Want of which their involuntary Silence on a Subject so
interesting and important has been construed by a late Political Writer of Great
Britain as an Acquiescence in that intended Project". The remonstrance closed
with the assertion that although the house had every confidence in the Gover-
nor's inclination to the interests of America it cannot be now silent because "at
some future Time .... it may be the Unhappiness of this Province to be
under the Government of a Gentleman less favorable in his Inclinations" (pp.
230-231). The reader must remember, that this remonstrance was written
after the Stamp Act Congress had been held and the Lower House had taken
a definite stand with the other colonies.

Although the two meetings of the Assembly which occurred in the autumn
and winter of 1765 might be regarded as one session, divided by a recess extend-
ing over the month of October, they are designated in the journals of the two
houses and in the session laws as separate sessions.

SESSION OF SEPTEMBER 1765

The Assembly met on September 23, 1765, with Governor Sharpe and five
of the eleven members of the Upper House present at the opening and forty
of the fifty-eight members of the Lower House. There had been a few changes
in the personnel of the Upper House or Council since the close of the October-
November, 1763, session. The Council when filled was a body of twelve. The
holdover members of the Upper House were Benjamin Tasker, the President,
Benedict Calvert, Samuel Chamberlaine, Charles Hammond, Richard Lee,
Robert Jenckins Henry, Charles Goldsborough, Edward Lloyd, Daniel Dulany,
and John Ridout. Stephen Bordley, the Attorney-General, who sat in the last
Assembly, had died December 6, 1764, and Philip Key on August 20, 1764.
Henry Hooper, for many years Speaker of the Lower House, was on Septem-