LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Baltimore, Dec. 1, 1946

To The Maryland Historical Society
GENTLEMEN :

The volume of the Archives of Maryland which is now presented contains
the Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland for October 2-
November 30, 1771, the only session held in that year, and also for the session
held from June 15 to July 3, in 1773, which, however, was not the only
meeting of the Assembly in that year. No session of the General Assembly
was held in 1772.

This is the sixty-third volume of the Archives of Maryland and the thirty-
first volume dealing with Assembly affairs. The text (pp. 3-420) was printed
directly from photostats of the original manuscripts at the Hall of Records,
in Annapolis.

The last volume of the Archives contains, among other Assembly proceed-
ings, those for the period from November 5 to November 21, 1770, when
Governor Eden prorogued the General Assembly. It was shortly afterwards
that the Governor issued two proclamations, one dated November 24 and the
other November 26. As was stated in the introduction of the last volume, the
Assembly during the fall of 1770 failed to reenact the Act of 1763 regarding
the staple of tobacco and officers' fees upon which depended the economic
stability of the colony (Arch. Md. Vol. LXII, xxix-xxxi). Accordingly, in
order that the province should not be without some such law Eden issued his
Proclamation of November 26, 1770, prohibiting any officer from receiving any
greater fees than allowed by the Act of 1763. The Proclamation of November
24, 1770, regulated the fees that could be charged by the Judges and Registers
of the Land Office (For Proclamation of Nov. 26, see pp. 109-110; and for
Proclamation of Nov. 24, see p. 111).

It was particularly Eden's Proclamation of November 26, 1770, that aroused
opposition among the colonists ("Life and Administration of Sir Robert Eden,"
by Bernard C. Steiner, in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and
Political Science, Series XVI, pp. 397-402). Another question which agitated
the people of Maryland at this time was the pay of the Anglican clergy (ibid.

pp. 376; 392-398; 403-404).

When the General Assembly met on October 2, 1771, it had been almost a
year since the last session, which Governor Eden had prorogued on November