Introduction. ciii

ber for rejection, was without action referred by the lower chamber to the next
Assembly for consideration. The necessity of a law imposing regulations and
restraints upon innkeepers had become so insistent that compelling circum-
stances pointed to a settlement of this long standing dispute in the near future.
At the May, 1766, session, a regulatory bill was brought into the Lower House
where, after debate, it was decided by the close vote of 20 to 19 that the fees
and fines collected should go to the respective counties in which the inns were
located and not for such purposes as the Assembly might decide (pp. 27,
30, 48). A motion that the bill be withdrawn and all the entries and proceedings
upon it be expunged was defeated by a vote of 20 to 19 (pp. 49-50). When
the bill reached the Upper House it was amended to give the disposal of the
license fees to the Assembly, and a few minor administrative changes were
made in it (pp. 9, 12-13). Thus amended, the bill was returned to the Lower
House where it was promptly rejected without explanation; but Sharpe, writing
to Secretary Hamersley, said that the Lower House, while really favorable to
the amended bill, had rejected it because it denied the right of the Upper House
to make any changes whatever in a money bill. Sharpe also wrote that he
told the members of the Upper House that had it passed the bill, acting under
orders from the Lord Proprietary, he would have been obliged to veto it, as his
instructions on this point were obligatory. He wrote requesting that the Pro-
prietary instruct him what he should do if the bill were passed by both houses
at the next Assembly (Arch. Md. 308, 310). At the November-December,
1766, session, a Lower House bill was passed entitled "An act to remedy the
evils arising from the retailing of strong liquors in small quantities without
license". The journal does not disclose its scope. After reaching the Upper
House it was rejected. The Lower House then ordered a committee to draw
up a message to the Upper House "to enforce its passage"; no message was
apparently sent and nothing further is heard of the matter (pp. 178-179, 109,

193).

This change in the attitude of the Upper House from opposition to approval
of a bill to regulate ordinaries and turn over the license fees to the public was
due to events which had transpired at meetings of the Governor's Council
during the last few days of the May, 1766, session. The same men who com-
posed the Upper House had, sitting as the Council, on May 23rd, 26th and 27th,
brought before them by the Governor his "Instructions" from the Lord Pro-
prietary dated February 7, 1765, directing him not to give his assent to any
bill taking from the Proprietary the license fees from ordinaries, which he
declared were his prerogative, unless a suspending clause of at least eighteen
months was inserted, so that his pleasure as regards the bill might be learned.
These instructions have been printed in a previous volume of the Archives
(LIX, pp. 359-360).

The Council referred these instructions to a committee of its members, of
which Daniel Dulany was one. This committee promptly rendered an opinion,
which was certainly written by Dulany. The report declared that neither under
his charter nor by act of Assembly was the Proprietary vested with the right
to regulate ordinaries or to receive the license fees. It declared that by decisions