Introduction. xv

As soon as the Lower House had expelled Mr. Hagar, it took up what was
m the long run, incomparably the most important thing it did in that session,
the matter of a committee of correspondence with the other colonies. Letters
to the Speaker from his Virginia and Rhode Island counterparts had come
last session, and been laid before the House; recently others had come from
Massachusetts and from Connecticut. The tenor of all was the same: let com-
mittees of correspondence be set up in each colony, committees whose business
should be to obtain and spread information of such British statutes or adminis-
trative acts as related to the American colonies, and to correspond with each
other on them. When in 1768, the Massachusetts circular letter about the
Townshend Acts had been followed by the King's command to the legislatures
of the other colonies to ignore it (LXI, Ix, 399), the Lower House refused
to ignore it, and was dissolved by the Governor, also at the orders of the King.
Now, five years later, there were no such consequences.

The letters were laid before the House on the afternoon of October 13, the
day the session opened, and they had probably been handed around among the
members as soon as they arrived. Late in the afternoon of October 15, after
they had taken time to expel Hagar, the House took them into consideration
and "RESOLVED unanimously That this House most cordially accept the
Invitation to a mutual Correspondence and Intercourse with our Sister
Colonies." (p. 23). A standing committee of eleven members was appointed,
consisting of Matthew Tilghman, John Hall of Anne Arundel County, Thomas
Johnson, William Paca, Samuel Chase, Edward Lloyd, Matthias Hammond,
Josias Beall, James Lloyd Chamberlaine, Brice Thomas Beale Worthington
and Joseph Sim. Copies of the resolutions were sent to the Speakers of all the
other colonies. The text of the letters received and of the Maryland action
on them is in App. I.

The usual spate of petitions was received in the Upper House and referred
by it to the Lower House; and some bills were introduced. A bill relating to
leases made by St. Anne's Parish Annapolis was introduced on October 16,
passed October 19, and passed next day by the Upper House. The unforeseen
adjournment of the Assembly prevented its being sealed by the Governor,
but in the next session it did become law (pp. 71, 193-194). Another bill to
quiet some Frederick Countians in the title to their possessions also passed
and also failed of sealing (pp. 10, 30, 32, 36), and, like the other, it too became
law in the next session (pp. 72, 194).

CONTROVERSIES SETTLED

A bill "for the regulation of the Staple of Tobacco, and for preventing
Frauds in his Majesty's Customs," brought in October 19, was passed on
the 22d. (pp. 18, 25, 29, 30), and sent forthwith to the Upper House. Here
it was conditionally accepted and returned to its originators (10, 12), who
rejected the condition. The Upper House was as well aware as the Lower
that the entire finance and economy of the Province hung on having a sound
law for the inspection of tobacco, but they could not bring themselves to pass
it in ite pre^nt form. In the message accompanying it on its return they sug-