INTRODUCTION
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1769-1770

COMPOSITION AND ORGANIZATION
THE COUNCIL OR UPPER HOUSE

As has already been stated Governor Eden had his first meeting with his
Council on June 12, 1769. All the men who attended this meeting had also
served as Councillors under Governor Horatio Sharpe (Arch. Md. XXXII,
272, 283). Benjamin Tasker, who had been one of the members of the Council
under Sharpe, had died on June 19, 1768 (Arch. Md. LXI, xli, 301; Maryland
Gazette, June 23, 1768). Subsequently, at a meeting with his Councillors on
November 12, 1769, Governor Eden informed them that he had received in-
structions from the Lord Proprietary to appoint William Fitzhugh a member
of the Council (Arch. Md. XXXII, 328). This meant that Fitzhugh sat as a
member of the Upper House, the personnel of the two bodies being the same.
William Hay ward became a member of the Council on September 24, 1770
(ibid. 385-386).

During the three sessions of the General Assembly held during 1769-1770,
when the members of the Council were sitting as the Upper House, Benedict
Calvert, Daniel Dulany, John Ridout, Walter Dulany, John Beale Bordley,
William Fitzhugh and George Stcuart were present at all three sessions. At
the session which met in September-November, 1770, William Hayward was
present, but he did not attend the third session.

Samuel Chamberlaine, Charles Hammond, Edward Lloyd III, and Richard
Lee were the other members of the Council. Only Lee and Hammond at-
tended any of the meetings of the Upper House during the sessions of the
General Assembly held in the years 1769 and 1770. Chamberlaine, Hammond
and Lee were old and infirm. Chamberlaine tendered his resignation as Coun-
cillor and member of the Upper House on June 22, 1769. Lloyd, who found
his duties as a Councillor distasteful, resigned from the Council on November
16 of the same year. He was the first of these four men to die. His death
occurred at Wye House on January 27, 1770, at the age of fifty-nine. A news-
paper notice of his death described him as "Possessed of great Wealth" (Arch.
Md. LXI, xli-xlii; Maryland Gazette, June 22, Nov. 16, 1769; Feb. 8, 1770;
Md. Hist. Mag. Vol. XVII, 28; ibid. Vol. XVIII, 274-275). Charles Ham-
mond lived to be eighty years old. He died on September 13, 1772, at his home
on the Severn river (Md. Hist. Mag. Vol. XVIII, 278). Richard Lee died at
Blenheim, in Charles County, on Jan. 26, 1787. He was the father of Richard
Lee, Jr., sheriff of Charles County, who is mentioned in the Introduction,
pp. 'xxiv, xxxiv-xxxv. (The Lees of Blenheim, by Ethel R. Hayden, Md.
Hist. Mag. Vol. XXXVII, 204-205; Maryland Gazette, Feb. 15, 1787).