lxxxvi Introduction.

death of her husband, Mrs. Green had continued to do the Assembly printing
without interruption, although no public levies had been made for her payment
since her husband's death (pp. 455-458). At the close of the 1768 session, just
before Governor Sharpe abruptly dissolved the Assembly because the Lower
House had, contrary to the orders of the Crown, taken notice of the letter of
the House of Representatives of Massachusetts protesting against the imposition
of import duties on tea, glass, and other articles brought in the colonies, and
had itself petitioned the King and passed resolutions protesting against these
duties, the Lower House ordered that there be printed in the Maryland Gazette
the Governor's message in regard to the Massachusetts letter and the reply of
the Lower House to it (p. 418). The house also ordered that its resolves relating
to bribery and treating at elections be "standing rules" of the house, and be
printed in the Maryland Gazette (p. 418). It further ordered that the bill for
licensing ordinary keepers, hawkers, peddlers, and petty chapmen, be also im-
mediately printed (p. 418). As this bill became a law and was printed in the
Session Laws for 1768 (pp. 473-484), we are left in the dark as to whether it
also first appeared as a separate pamphlet. Certainly no copy is known of such
a pamphlet. Perhaps the Lower House felt that the Governor might veto the
bill, and sought in that event to assure the publicity which would result from
its printing.

BALTIMORE TOWN MADE THE COUNTY SEAT

A battle royal raged in Baltimore County at the 1768 Assembly over the
removal of the County Seat of Baltimore County from the dying town of Joppa
on the Gunpowder to the rapidly growing Baltimore Town on the Patapsco. Not
only was the harbor of Joppa rapidly filling up with silt, but the increase of the
population and sea borne commerce of Baltimore and its neighborhood, as well
as the agricultural development to the west of the town beyond tidewater, made
such a change desirable.

The matter came up early in the session with the presentation of a petition
in the Upper House, May 30, 1768, from sundry inhabitants of Baltimore
County, praying the removal of the court house and prison to Baltimore Town
(p. 286), followed by a similar petition on June 8th, against removal (p. 294).
Fortunately, both these petitions, to be commented upon later, with their very
numerous signatures, have been preserved. It seems likely that the petition
against removal was fathered by John Paca, whose son, William Paca, a member
of the Lower House, later became a signer of the Declaration of Independence
and governor, and whose plantation was near Joppa (p. 296). The petition for
removal seems to have been fathered by John Moale, a new member of the
Lower House from Baltimore County (p. 352). Both petitions were referred
by the Upper House to the lower chamber. On June 6th, immediately following
the receipt of the petition for removal, a motion that it be granted was approved
by the Lower House by a vote of 42 to 5, those voting against it being Buchanan
and Bordley of Kent, Beale of Prince George's, William Paca of Anne Arundel,
and Thomas Cockey Deye of upper Baltimore County. A committee was ap-
pointed, headed by Thomas Jenings, with Chase, Johnson, Ridgely, Moale and