Introduction. lxxi

than other forms of immorality. Macpherson had come to Maryland in 1751
and had been rector of William and Mary Parish, Charles County, since 1757.
He had been, for some time, a prisoner for debt in the Charles County jail,
when at the 1768 session, he petitioned for relief (p. 287). The Lower House
appointed a committee of five, with John Hanson, of Charles County as chair-
man, to examine into the matter and report to the house (p. 358). The com-
mittee reported that Macpherson was so largely indebted to a number of per-
sons that there was no probability of his being able to extricate himself without
legislative relief. His annual income as rector, derived from the clergy tax of
30 pounds of tobacco per poll, levied upon the parish inhabitants, was about
26,000 pounds, his glebe land was now rented for £10 currency a year, and he
also had the income from some thirteen or fourteen working negroes belonging
to the glebe of the parish. What, if anything, he derived from his interest in
the Cudbear Works in Scotland, the committee had not learned (pp. 366-367).
The committee advised that all this income be assigned to trustees for the
benefit of his creditors, and an act to this end passed. The house concurred with
the report and a bill was ordered to be drawn and brought in for his relief
(p. 383). After slight amendment in the Upper House this bill was passed
(pp. 318, 406). The preamble recited the facts enumerated above in the report,
adding that Macpherson had offered to give up his whole estate, including his
future income as rector of William and Mary Parish. Three prominent men
were appointed trustees for the creditors. The rector, who of course retained
his benefice, was allowed to keep his wearing apparel and library; the trustees
were directed to reserve out of his income and pay to him for his support and
maintenance 11,000 pounds of tobacco out of his estimated salary as rector of
26,000 pounds, the balance of his income from this and other sources to be
paid annually to the trustees for the benefit of the creditors. The usual pro-
visions in acts for insolvent debtors for the protection of both the creditors
and the debtor are incorporated in the act (pp. 465-468). Macpherson seems
to have continued to serve as rector of this parish until his death in 1785.

Outraged by the offenses against decency by so many clergymen of the
established church, a bill drawn up by a committee consisting of such leading
members of the Lower House as Johnson, Hollyday, Ringgold, Murdock, Ed-
ward Tilghman, Matthew Tilghman, Chase, Allen, and Paca, was introduced
on June 8, 1768, as supplementary to the old law for "establishment of re-
ligious worship in the Province according to the Church of England." Under
the proposed regulatory law all beneficed clergy were forbidden to be absent
more than two months in any one year from their parishes, this provision
being aimed at those rectors who collected their full salaries and farmed out
their duties to poorly paid curates. A board was to be created, composed of
the Governor, three clergymen, and three laymen, to be appointed by him,
"to exercise a Kind of Visitorial Jurisdiction with disciplinary powers over
such Ministers as may be accused of any notorious or scandalous Behavior"
(p. 361; Arch. Md. XIV, 504). This bill for the regulation of the clergy
passed the Lower House by a vote of 35 to 2, and also the Upper House, where
it was strongly backed by both Dulanys, after it had been amended so that it