1 Introduction.

"mathematicians" who were consulted by the Lower House committee were
James Calder (1729-1808) of Hunting Ridge, Baltimore County, and John
Frederick Augustus Prigg of Prince George's County. Both of these men
were surveyors. Calder, who was living in 1768 at Hunting Ridge near what
is now Catonsville, and later at "Castle Calder" in upper Baltimore County,
was a native of Scotland. He was commissioned Deputy Surveyor of Frederick
County, October 20, 1768, and of Baltimore County, October 16, 1771 (Md.
Hist. Mag. XXVII, 358; XXVIII, 30). It was his wife who was one of the
victims of an attack upon her and a young lady living with her in 1768, which
is described in detail in this volume (pp. 285, 286). Prigg was commissioned
Deputy Surveyor of Prince George's County December 2, 1771. Succeeding
Assemblies had the question of compass variations before them.

Legislation. The output of legislation at this 1768 session was twenty-nine
acts passed. Of these nine may be classed as "general laws," or laws which if
not general, were of such wide scope as to be so classed; thirteen local laws;
and seven private laws. No old laws seem to have expired in 1768 by time
limitation; at least no bills were brought in for the continuance of laws "about
to expire".

General laws. To the members of the Lower House, and doubtless to the
public in general, by far the most important law politically was that "for licen-
sing ordinary keepers, hawkers, peddlers, and petty chapmen". Since the
Protestant Revolution of 1689, the people had claimed their right to the license
fees and fines from ordinaries or inns which since the political restoration
of the Province to the Calverts in 1714 had been claimed by the Lord Pro-
prietary, and before 1714 by the Provincial Secretary appointed by the Crown.
This controversy, from 1689 until 1714, was with the Provincial Secretary,
who had claimed and retained them; and from 1714 to 1768, with increasing
bitterness, it was waged between the people and the Proprietary. The end had
come in 1766 when Daniel Dulany had given a legal opinion to Frederick,
Lord Baltimore, in which the latter reluctantly acquiesced, that there was no
means by which he could enforce his claim to these licenses, fees, and fines. So
now, for the first time, the Governor and the Upper House were willing to
pass an act regulating inns and vesting the license money in the public, this
to be used as the Assembly might direct. For many years Lower House bills
to this end had been regularly rejected in the Upper House. The end of the
controversy and the 1768 licensing act are discussed later (pp. cii-cv). The
disposition of license fees (and fines imposed) from hawkers, peddlers and
petty chapmen had in recent years also been a matter of controversy be-
tween the two houses, and Lower House bills vesting them in the public had
been regularly rejected by the Upper House for the same reason as had the
bills for licensing and regulating ordinaries. As seen from the title of the
ordinary act of 1768, the licensing of ordinaries and of hawkers, peddlers, and
petty chapmen were now under it brought together in one law (pp. 473-482).

Other general acts of special interest passed at the 1768 session were (I)
"for the relief of the poor and erecting workhouses in the several counties".
Heretofore, poor relief had been effected by the placing out of all public de-