INTRODUCTION

During the 1766-1768 period there were three sessions of the General As-
sembly. Two of these were held in the year 1766 and one in 1768. The session
held in May, 1766, was a short one, consideration of most of the business
before the Assembly being deferred until the November-December meeting.
There was no session in 1767, but at the close of the year a new Assembly was
elected. It was this new Assembly which held its first meeting in the early sum-
mer of 1768. On the whole the relations between the Lower House representing
the people at large on one hand, and the Governor and Upper House represent-
ing the interests of Frederick, Lord Baltimore, the Proprietary, on the other,
were less unfriendly than they had been for several years.

SESSION OF MAY, 1766

The session of the Assembly which had come to an end on December 20,
1765, was prorogued by Governor Sharpe to meet again on the first Monday
in March, 1766 (Arch. Md. LIX, 261). But the Governor, on February loth,
postponed the date of meeting, and prorogued it until May 5th. Evidently,
when that day arrived, there were not sufficient numbers of the Lower House
present for holding a meeting as it was on four successive days again prorogued
until it finally began its session on May 9, 1766, with thirty-six of the fifty-eight
delegates present (Arch. Md. XXXII, 118). This was the third meeting of
the Assembly which had been elected in the autumn of 1764.

Nine members of the Upper House were present at various times during this
May session. Col. Edward Lloyd of Wye House, a councillor since 1743, did
not once take his seat. The two vacancies caused by the deaths of Philip Key
and Stephen Bordley, had not yet been filled. James Holliday had been offered
one of these seats in the Council and the Upper House, but had declined appoint-
ment (Arch. Md. XIV, 188, 202, 208, 217, 281, 311). Appointment to the
Council of course carried with it a seat in the Upper House as the personnel of
the two bodies was identical.

During the last session Col. Henry Travers, a delegate from Dorchester
County, had died (Arch. Md. LIX, 251), and Col. John Henry, who had been
elected in his place, was sworn in (p. 4). No other change in the personnel
of the Lower House had occurred since the previous meeting.

The session opened in the usual way (pp. 17-18). The Lower House sent
two of its members to notify the Governor that there was present in the Stadt
House "A Sufficient number of Delegates to compose a Lower House". Two
members of the Upper House were then sent to acquaint the Speaker that the
Governor required the immediate attendance of the Lower House in the Upper
House (pp. 17-19). Here Sharpe delivered a speech to the members of both
houses. He said that he had called a session at this time because he had found
by experience that many members could not attend at the season of the year