xxxii Introduction.

October 22, 1771, that the Delegates resolved themselves into a Committee of
the Whole House to take into consideration the expediency and the ways and
means of issuing bills of credit for the improvement of the province and the
advancement of trade (pp. 118, 119). Three days later the Lower House
approved the appropriation of a sum for establishing a "Seminary of Learn-
ing" in the province and ordered that leave be given to bring in a bill for a
further emission of bills of credit (pp. 127-128). This bill was finally passed
and sent to the Upper House (pp. 158-160).

There on November 9 an amendment was proposed to the bill (pp. 28, 160).
When the bill with the amendment was returned to the Lower House, the Dele-
gates sent a message to the upper chamber in which they said that they were
much concerned that the Upper House always proposed amendments to the
money bills which they sent to them. As the Lower House claimed the exclusive
right to draw up such bills, they had rejected the amendment which the upper
chamber had suggested (p. 176).

In their reply, the members of the Upper House would not admit the claim
of the Delegates regarding money bills. The maintained that there were not
only instances of amendment of money bills by them, but also of such bills
being framed by a committee of both Houses and that even some money bills
had originated in the Upper House (pp. 34-35, 181). No further action appears
to have been taken on this bill at the October-November, 1771, session.

LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS
NEW GENERAL ACTS OR NEW ACTS SUPPLEMENTARY TO OLD ACTS

As the name implies such acts applied to the province as a whole. During
the General Assembly, which met from October 2 to November 30, 1771, one
law of that character, or type, was entitled "An Act for imposing a further
additional Duty of five Pounds Current Money per Poll on all Negroes imported
into this Province." Half of this sum was to be applied to the use of the county
schools within the colony (pp. 242-243). It was supplementary to a similar act
passed in 1763 (Arch. Md. LVIII, 512; ibid. LXI, 232).

Another general law passed at this session was "An Act for vesting in such
foreign Protestants as are now naturalized or shall be hereafter naturalized
in this Province all the Rights & Privileges of natural born Subjects" (p. 238).

Three acts, passed at October-November, 1771, session of the General
Assembly referred to courts to which all could appeal and therefore the
laws in question might be termed general acts. Two of these statutes pro-
vided for "the Adjournment & Continuance of the High Court of Appeals."
Circumstances made such a step necessary. The first adjournment was "untill
the third Friday in November next" and the second postponement was "untill
second Tuesday in February next" (pp. 239, 279). The third law was entitled
"An Act for preventing trivial Suits in the Provincial Court." It sought to
compel plaintiffs to sue in the county courts where the sum involved did not
amount to more than twenty pounds sterling (p. 247).

Although they referred to persons, two laws enacted during the fall session
of 1771 can be classified as general laws. One of these was entitled "An Act