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L. H. J.
Liber No. 54
Dec. 20
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The Confidence your Lordship is pleased to express in M.r Eden's
Abilities and Inclination to make us a happy People, joined to your
intimate Connexion, and your Sentiments of Affection, and Friend-
ship for him, afford us a pleasing Hope that the Authority you have
delegated to him may be so unrestricted, as to permit a full and free
Exertion of those Abilities, actuated by that good Inclination, upon
all Occasions, to promote the Welfare of the People of Maryland.
With this Idea we very cordially receive M.r Eden as our Governor,
and we cannot but highly value ourselves upon your Lordship's
favourable Opinion that he will receive from us those Returns
which we persuade ourselves his Conduct will demand, as the due
Rewards of his Merit.
Your Lordships Offer to encourage any Plan which we may pro-
pose for the Improvement of, or Addition to the Happiness of the
Province, claims our most grateful Acknowledgments: And though
the severe Season in which we are at this Time engaged in Business
and the incommodious State of our public Buildings in which we are
obliged to transact it, will not permit us now to propose any regular
Plan of Improvement; yet our Duty calls upon us to point out to your
Lordship, what, in our Opinion, have been some of the principle
Causes that have hitherto retarded the Growth of this Province. The
Collection of the 14.d Sterling per Tun on Shipping trading to this
Province, to your Lordships private Use, and of the I2.d per Hogs-
head for the Support of Government, professedly under Laws, which,
in the Opinion of the People of this Province, have no real Existence.
The Application of a Third Part of the I2.d contrary to the known
Application of it, while the Law, creating that Duty did exist, and
the constant refusal of the Upper House to pass a Bill for the Sup-
port of an Agent in London to transact the affairs of the Province
in Behalf of the People, together with an extreme Attachment in that
Branch to the private Proprietary Interest, and to the Profits of
Office, have for many Years greatly disquieted the Minds of the
People, and contributed not a little to embarrass the public Pro-
ceedings, and to obstruct the forming of good and wholesome Laws.
And we must beg Leave particularly to observe to your Lordship,
that the 14.d per Tun is burthensome to Trade as to be accounted
one principle Cause why a great Part of the Produce of this Prov-
ince is exported through the Channel of Pennsylvania, whose rapid
Progress in Improvement, from the Spirit of Freedom breathed
through her whole political System, is scarcely to be parallelled.
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p. 57
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The issuing Writs of Replevin out of the Chancery only, is very
grievous to the People of the Eastern Shore, and to all others remote
from that Office; and though an easy Remedy has been long desired,
yet it has been constantly denied to this Time; because, as it now
appears from an Amendment made by the Upper House to a Bill sent
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