632 THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.

pence per bushel. For the year 1783 his compensation was fixed
at six hundred pounds. For the year ] 784 it was, in like manner,
settled at six hundred pounds; and it was declared, that for the
year 1785, the chancellor shall be allowed a salary of six hundred
and fifty pounds current money. The provision for the payment
of the salaries of the chancellor and judges, for each of those four
years, was made by an act passed annually, and usually entitled
" an act to settle and pay the civil list."(o)

Hence, it appears, that during a period of nine years, all judi-
cial salaries were in a most unstable, and insecure condition. The
chancellor's salary, within that time, fluctuated from three hundred
pounds to twelve thousand five hundred pounds, in nominal amount;
and, except for the years 1783 and 1784, it was continued at the
same amount no two years in succession. The causes of these
variations, and of this uncertainty, will be found in the then con-
dition of the circulating medium; and in the low, distracted state
of the public finances; not in any mere caprice of the legislature;
or in any strange whims of theirs about the court of chancery; for,
during that period, the court continued its course steadily, and was
then acknowledged to be one of the most valuable tribunals of
Maryland.

"These United States (said the Congress of the Union) having
been driven into this just and necessary war, at a time when no regu-
lar civil governments were established of sufficient energy to enforce
the collection of taxes, or to provide funds for the redemption of
such bills of credit as their necessities obliged them to issue, and
before the powers of Europe were sufficiently convinced of the
justness of their cause, or of the probable event of the contro-
versy, to afford them aid or credit; in consequence of which, their
bills increasing in quantity beyond the sum necessary for the pur-
pose of a circulating medium, and wanting at the same time spe-
cific funds to rest on for their redemption, they have seen them
daily sink in value, notwithstanding every effort that has been made
to support the same, insomuch, that they are now passed by com-
mon consent, in most parts of these United States, at least thirty-
nine fortieths below theirt nominal value, and still remain in a state

(o) Resolutions of the 14th of April 1777; the 16th of December 1777; the 12th of
December 1778; the 29th of December 1779, by which also the Chancellor was
allowed £875 for his past services of that year; and the 6th of January 1781; and
the acts of November 1781, ck. 29; November 1782, ch. 28; November 1783, ch. 31,
and November 1784, ch. 68.