xlvi Introduction.

December, 1758, session, Governor Sharpe had informed the Assembly that he
had been commanded by the Lord Proprietary, acting upon instructions from
the Lords of Trade and Plantations, to recommend the imposition by Virginia
and Maryland of a tonnage duty of twopence a pound on tobacco on vessels en-
tering the Capes, to be used for the erection of a lighthouse at Cape Henry. The
Lower House had deferred consideration of the matter until the next Assembly
(Arch. Md. LVI, xxii), which, however, did not revive it. Now, after the
passage of ten years, the question of a lighthouse at Cape Henry was again
brought before the Assembly, this time in the form of a letter, dated May 5,
1767, from Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses of Virginia,
addressed to the Speaker of the Lower House of the Maryland Assembly, in
which Randolph expressed the belief that the obvious advantages to the trade
of both colonies left him "no room to doubt that your Legislature will readily
join us in so useful an undertaking." Transmitted with this letter was a copy
of the resolutions of the House of Burgesses containing an outline of a pro-
posed act by Virginia, in which hope was expressed that Maryland would concur
in passing an act imposing a sixpence tonnage charge on vessels leaving the
Province to help meet the expenses of erecting and maintaining a lighthouse at
Cape Henry (pp. 334-335). Nothing was done at this session, however, but in
1773, the Maryland Assembly did pass an act appropriating £3600 current
money, the Virginia Assembly having previously appropriated £6000 for the
same purpose, to build and maintain a lighthouse at Cape Henry, the money to
be raised by a tonnage tax of fourpence upon ships entering and leaving Mary-
land and Virginia (Hanson's Laws of Maryland, 1787; Act of 1773, Chap.
xxx). The difference in the amount appropriated by these two colonies may
be the measure of the respective seagoing trade of each province.

Salaries for judges. The commissions and salaries paid to the judges of the
Provincial Court had long been a disputed question between the two houses, the
Lower House wishing to use money from licenses and court fees for fixed
salaries. Early in the 1768 session the Lower House appointed a large com-
mittee, headed by Samuel Chase with twelve associates, to which two more
were later added, with orders to draw up a bill for regulating these commissions
and salaries, and to submit a report estimating the salaries now received by the
three judges. The day following the appointment of the committee it made its
report, indicating that the facts were already well known to the committee
and a report had been prepared in advance. The report estimated the annual
amount required for the support of the judges to be: £666: 13:4 as the
salary for the chief judge; and £400 for each of the two puisne (associate)
judges; a total of £1466: 13: 4 for the three. It recommended that this amount
be raised by taxes estimated as follows: from licenses on ordinaries at £4 each—
£800; on hawkers and peddlers at £4 each—£80; on "riding carriage wheels" at
four shillings each—£80; on judgments of the Provincial Court in civil cases
at four shillings each—£120; these taxes were estimated to have a total yield
of £1480. The figures indicate that there were then in the Province about 200
inns or ordinaries, 20 hawkers and peddlers, and 2400 riding carriage wheels
liable to taxation, and that there were about 6oo civil judgments rendered an-