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posed in the Regulation of the ffees of Officers nor had you any
Reason to imagine that it would interpose in such a Manner as to
justify a regular Opposition to it." From whence your Excellency's
Declaration in the same Message "that it had been the Object of
your anxious Attention and was your very earnest Wish to cultivate
an amicable Understanding with the Representatives of the People
of Maryland with the Assurance that you should on every Occasion
pay a due Regard to their Rights and that you should never counte-
nance the illegal Exactions of any Officers nor submit to any Usurpa-
tion which might essentially endanger that constitutional Balance of
counteracting Powers so necessary to the Protection of the People
and the Preservation of the Public Peace." The good People of this
Province although they might commend the Solicitude of their Dele-
gates had great Reason to imagine their Apprehensions were ill
grounded, especially when it was remembered, that your Excellency
in your first Speech to the late Assembly, was pleased to express
that you were sensible you should be judged of by your Actions and
not by any Assurances you might then give the two Houses of your
future Conduct; to which Test you most readily submitted. But after
the Sense of the late House so plainly expressed and within a shorter
Time after your Excellency's last Message to that House than the
Resolution could well be formed, your Excellency's Proclamations
were distributed and published, altogether as we apprehend unconsti-
tutional in the Matter, and shadowed in the Manner with the assigned
Reason to prevent Extortion by the Officers, in Imitation of the
Practice of arbitrary Kings, who in their Proclamations, which have
been declared illegal, generally covered their Designs with the spe-
cious Pretence of Public Good.
Your Excellency in your said Message having been pleased to tell
the late Lower House "His Lordship has, I think, the clearest Right
to dispose of his real Estate upon such Terms as he may think proper;
to direct the formal Observance in making Titles to his Grants and
to settle and regulate the Reward his Officers in this Department may
demand and receive," and your Excellency having been pleased to
pass a separate Instrument under the great Seal, avowedly for the
Purpose of accertaining the ffees of the Land Office, and in the
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 54
Nov. 22
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Proclamation respecting Officers ffees in general having published
that the ffees of the Land Office were under a separate Regulation; a
Question of momentous Concern to the People of this Province may
arise, whether the Land Office is a publick or private Office? The
professed Intention of the Crown, in the Grant of this Province to
his Lordship's noble Ancestor was "for extending the Christian
Religion and also the Territories of the English Empire" And
though his Lordship might dispose of his Lands upon such reason-
able Terms, as he might think proper, and direct formal Observances
in making Titles to his Grants, so as to further the Increase and
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p. 268
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