Introduction. xxxi

had felt it their duty to contradict some of the insulting remarks of the conferees
of the Lower House (pp. 58-65, 209).

The Lower House now decided to end the conference. The conferees of the
Upper House were so notified and also told that an answer to their "illiberal
Language" would not be productive of any good as the Delegates were not
disposed to attempt a rivalship with the Upper House members "in the Talents
for Petulance and impertinent Invective." It is interesting to note that this
message of the Lower House was passed by the relatively close vote of sixteen
to thirteen. Six of the eight conferees of the Lower House took part in the
voting and of these only two, Paca and Tilghman, were in favor of the mes-
sage, Johnson, Hammond, Grahame and Hall were against it (pp. 65, 209-210).

When the conferees of the Upper House received this address, they replied
that they were not surprised at it as it was consistent with the spirit of the other
proceedings of the Delegates. The members of the upper chamber added that
they most willingly consented to end a conference "so extremely disagreeable."
So ended the meeting. On the same day the Upper House returned without their
endorsement to the lower chamber the bill entitled "Act for Amending the
Staple of Tobacco for preventing Frauds in His Majestys Customs and for
the Limitation of Officers Fees" (pp. 65, 211, 213).

During the session of the General Assembly which met from June 15 to
July 3, 1773, the first attempt to introduce the same bill on June 18 in the Lower
House was defeated (pp. 346-347). However, permission to bring in such a
bill was given on June 23 and on June 29 a motion to refer the bill to the next
session of the General Assembly was defeated (pp. 357, 378-379). It was then
passed by the Lower House on July I, sent to the Upper House where it failed
to pass (pp. 330, 331, 335, 386). No agreement about this bill could be
reached until the November-December session of 1773 (Green's Laws of Mary-
land, November-December, 1773, Chaps. I, XXI).

Until this time, that is, the fall of 1773 when the bill became law again how
were fees collected for the various offices ? This question is answered by the
report of a committee to the Lower House on June 24, 1773, in which it was
stated that in obedience to the order of the Delegates that they had applied to
Reverdy Ghiselin, Clerk of the Secretary's Office, Elie Vallette, Register of the
Commissary's Office, James Brooks, of the Chancery Office, and William
Steuart, Register of the Land Office, requesting these men to inform the Lower
House committee what fees were taken or charged by the said officers and by
what authority. All of them replied that they were charging the same fees as
were authorized under certain provisions of the "Act for Amending the Staple
of Tobacco, etc." which had expired and not been renewed and had permitted
persons to pay either in tobacco, or in money at the rate of twelve shillings and
six pence for every hundred pounds of tobacco (pp. 359-361). This was in
accordance with the terms of the Governor Eden's proclamation of November
26 and his instructions to the Land Office of November 24, 1770 (pp. 109-110,
111).

Still another bill upon which the Upper and Lower Houses could not agree
was entitled "An Act for the further Emission of Bills of Credit." It was on