Introduction. lv

his debts", etc. It appears that Philpott, the owner and developer of a tract of
land in that section of Baltimore lying between Jones's Falls and Harford
Run in South Baltimore, had died, with claims against his estate amounting
to the large sum of £4093: 19: 8 Sterling and £1876: 15:4, Maryland currency,
and other open accounts against him; and that the apparent value of his per-
sonal estate was only about £1569. The act recites that her husband had given
a written memorandum to an attorney to draw a will directing that certain
lands be sold for the payment of his debts, but that the will was not executed;
that it will be to the advantage of the heir at law that sufficient of these
lands be now sold to pay the debts in full. The act gave the widow authority
to sell lots by public vendue sufficient to pay the debts (pp. 461-463).

An act for the relief of Joseph Scott of Worcester County is of interest as
showing that the Province was liable for the value of a slave who died after
commitment to prison on a criminal charge. It is disclosed that Scott was the
owner of a negro man slave who had been committed to the custody of the
sheriff on suspicion of murder, and that while in prison he had died. The act
authorized the justices of Worcester County to determine the value of the
slave at the time of his arrest, and that the owner be reimbursed to that amount
by the Treasurer of the Eastern Shore (pp. 439-440).

The usual leisurely routine for the ending of a session of the Assembly was
upset by the defiant action of the Lower House in its sympathetic consideration
of the letter of the Massachusetts House, which made it necessary for Sharpe,
acting under orders from the Crown, to dissolve it immediately. Before doing
so, however, he added his fiat to the various bills awaiting his signature,
although as his address shows, with some misgiving on his part whether he
should delay proroguement long enough to do this (p. 419). In a closing speech
he prorogued the Assembly to meet again on the first Tuesday of October,
1768 (p. 420), although it did not actually come together again until November
17, 1769.

ECHOES OF THE STAMP ACT

Echoes of the Stamp Act were heard at both of the 1766 assemblies. At the
close of the May, 1766, session, the Lower House had appointed a committee
of three headed by Edward Tilghman to correspond during the recess of the
Assembly with Charles Garth, Agent of Maryland in Great Britain in Stamp
Act affairs (p. 63), and a resolution had been adopted, directing the Speaker
to "acquaint Charles Garth, Esq., that this House unanimously approve his
Conduct, communicated in his Letters of 26th of February and 5th of March
last to Messrs. Tilghman, Murdock and Ringgold, laid before this House"
(p. 64). These letters from Garth do not appear in the journal of the Lower

House but have been reprinted in full in the Maryland Historical Magazine

(Vol. VI, 1911, pp. 282-305). Earlier in this session of the Assembly a letter
from James Otis of Massachusetts, addressed to Messrs. Tilghman, Murdock
and Ringgold, who had been the representatives of Maryland at the Stamp Act
Congress, asking that a further allowance be made to the clerk of the Congress,
was read to the Lower House, but the house refused to make any further allow-
ances than those that had already been granted (pp. 29-30).