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studiously calculated and industriously exhibited to promote Dis-
content, and encourage expensive Litigation.
You thought the Regulation of Officers Fees ought, in the first
place, to have been settled, not because it first occurred in the Bill,
but for other Reasons assigned in your last Paper of which we no
more Perceive the Force than we are able to guess at the Event which
has approved them. We have not declined the Consideration of this
Topick, nor has any Time been lost by the Arrangement of our
Propositions. You have been constrained to admit that we have
imparted our Reasons, tho you think it useless to examine them
minutely; but is such Conduct Consistent with the Purpose of a
Conference as would naturally be pursued by the very Opponents
of the Measure? We at once declared, that we would not agree to
a Reduction of the Fees, legally chargeable under the Old Table
beyond that very considerable one in the Election given to all Per-
sons to Pay in Money or Tobacco; if a further Reduction than this
was your Aim why did you not at once avow it and terminate the
Conference at least with Civility? We have over and again offered
to concert with you the proper Means for preventing every Abuse
committed under the Old Table; but we are not bound to admit
every thing to be what you chuse to call it. You have not informed
us in what Instances the Demands of the Surveyors and Examiner
have been Extravagent nor pointed out the Abuses they have actu-
ally Committed. We are not acquainted with their Abuses; We must
understand the Subject, and have a fair Opportunity of judging
upon it before we bind ourselves by Concessions. The Matters you
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U. H. J.
Liber No. 36
Nov. 26
p. 614
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have represented to be Abuses in the Commissaries Office, are the
Orders and Charges on Administrations & granted by the Deputies.
You asserted that "there is an additional Order in this Office to
almost every Act done therein, when the Old Table made the Allow-
ance only in Testamentary Causes and in Order to correct this sup-
posed Abuse, the new Table allows only in the single Instance of
entering every Motion in Court, and Order thereon Five Pounds of
Tobacco." Must not such an Alteration very much diminish the
Fees of the Commissary General, when there can be no pretence
that it is necessary to prevent Abuse, since "besides" the Allowance
for Orders in Testamentary Causes the only Allowance you have
acknowledged the Old Table most expressly gives a Fee for Orders
in four other Instances, exclusive of the general Article. Can this
be directly denied to be an attempt to reduce under the pretence of
correcting Abuses ?
As to the double Charge as you call it, we may add to what we
have already advanced, that it is not only Consistent with constant
usage; but has been admitted to be regular in the various Instances
both at Law and in Equity, of Allowances made to Executors and
Administrators for their Charges, and Disbursements. You have
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p. 615
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