Introduction. ci

of 173,733 dollars, at the rate of four shillings and sixpence sterling to the
dollar, amounting in all to £39,089 sterling; this issue to be secured by the
£32,030: 17:2 sterling invested in Bank Stock in the hands of the London
Trustees. As the Bank of England stock with its prospective dividends would
be more than sufficient to take up the Bills of Exchange at maturity, no taxes
were dedicated to be added to the Sinking Fund, as in the case of old issue of
Bills of Credit recently retired. These new Bills of Credit were to be issued
to pay the public debt in arrears and a reserve of sufficient amount to pay the
Clerk of the Upper House should the Crown so decide, leaving a small balance
to be used as the Assembly might direct. Two commissioners, to be appointed
by the Lord Proprietary or the Governor, were to supervise the printing
and issuing of the Bills of Credit in the form of paper currency; the commis-
sioners were to keep a fair account of all receipts and expenditures, to be laid
before a joint committee of the two houses to be appointed at the next session,
the commissioners after reporting to be thereupon discharged. The paper cur-
rency was to be deposited in one of the Iron Chests in the Paper Currency
Office, this Chest to have two locks with different combinations, each Com-
missioner to have a key, so that neither might have access except in the
presence of the other. When the Office or repository was turned over to the
joint committee of the two houses, the Governor was to have the key of the
Office, one of the keys of the Iron Chest was to be held by the President of
the Upper House, the other by the Speaker of the Lower House. The act
specifically provided that this issue of Bills of Credit should not be construed
as legal tender in discharge of any contract, unless so provided in the contract
(pp. 264, 275). The two Commissioners appointed by Governor Sharpe were
John Clapham and Robert Coudon (Maryland Historical Mag. XXVI, 1931,

355).

At the 1768 session, a joint committee appointed by the Assembly, composed
of two members of the Upper House and ten members of the Lower House,
with Benedict Calvert as chairman, inspected the recently created Office for
Issuing Bills of Credit and the accounts of the commissioners appointed to pay
off the public claims and issue the Bills of Credit and, on June 22, 1768, ren-
dered its report. It found that as of May 21, 1767, the Trustees in London
held £31,000 stock of the Bank of England, which had been acquired at a cost
of £39,179: 17:6 Sterling, and £1,235:4:0 Sterling uninvested. It was also
reported that Bills of Credit to the amount of 145,808 dollars in Bills had been
paid out to claimants up to March 5, 1767, and that since then additional sums
had been paid out under orders of the Assembly, leaving in the office unissued
paper currency to the amount of 17,466 dollars.

There were considerable misgivings as to whether this issue of Bills of Credit
or paper currency was legal and not contrary to a recent act of Parliament
prohibiting the issue of paper money by the colonies to be used as legal
tender. Although the credit of Maryland among the colonies stood high be-
cause its previous issue of Bills of Credit had been amply secured by Bank of
England stock held in a sinking fund and paid off in full, the paper money of
certain other colonies was so unstaple and showed such great depreciation, that