The Lower House. 413

unanimously rejected in this House. To prevent the Inconvenience
which must necessarily follow an unexpected ffall of a Regulation
of our Staple which had long been in Use, we soon afterwards sent a
Bill to your Honours to close the Accounts and Transactions of the
Inspectors, and provide for the Payment of the County Levies and
Parochial Charges, which have been intimately connected with the
Inspection Act: And still further to lessen the Burthen on the
People of Tobacco Payments, we sent you another Bill, to give an
Alternative in the Payment of Lawyers ffees, which stood in Tobacco
on a legal Establishment, but you defeated our Intentions, by pro-
posing an Amendment, by which all those Parts of the Bill which
provided for the Payment of the County Levies and Parochial
Charges would have been left out, and by proposing a Regulation on
Lawyers, which your House was never fond of, but to destroy those
of the Profession who have concurred with others in opposing the
Encroachment of Power — Your Honours then sent us down a Bill
to continue the Inspection Law and the Supplementary Act thereto,
except the Parts therein excepted; which would have continued the
Regulation of the Staple separate from that of the ffees of Officers,
and would also have continued the Mode of paying the Levy; but
for some Reason or other there speedily followed, by your Advice as

a Council of State, an abrupt Prorogation, which put an End to

that Bill — With very few and small Alterations we again, as soon
as could be, sent you the Inspection Bill, which still lies before you,
and has been the Occasion of many Messages, which we are appre-
hensive have not, even yet, fully removed all Misunderstanding
between us.

We do not clearly comprehend what your Honours call Abuses,
and, by your Language in the two last Messages, are of Opinion
you are unacquainted with what we call Abuses. We now therefore
request your Honours will be pleased to inform us, Whether you
esteem the ffees charged by the Commissary General, for Services
done by the Deputies, and for which they are paid, which have been
estimated at the annual Amount of above 60,000 Pounds of Tobacco,
an Abuse of the old Regulation, or not? Whether your Honours
esteem the Charge for recording Papers by the Secretary and County
Clerks in Actions discontinued, abated, struck off, or agreed, when
they are not nor need be recorded, an abuse or not ? Whether y.^r Hon-
ours esteem the Charge of 300lb of Tob.^o by Surveyors for laying
down adjacent Tracts merely to correct the Errors of an orig^l Survey
an Abuse or not ? Whether your Honours esteem the Charge of 300
Pounds of Tobacco as for a Resurvey by a Surveyor, for surveying or
laying down each Tract of Land, on a Warrant of Survey from the
Provincial Court an Abuse, or not ? and whether the like Charge of
300 Pounds of Tobacco, for any Tract laid down only for Illustra-
tion, is an Abuse or not ? Whether your Honours esteem the Charge

L. H. J.
Liber No. 54
Nov. 17
p. 176