William Parks, Public Printer of Maryland and Virginia

each of the members of the Assembly, the Commissioners of the Peace and
the justices of the County Court.

2. He would print journals, votes, speeches, etc., at a price per sheet later
to be fixed.

3. If the first two proposals were accepted, and if he were given fair as-
surance of a permanent establishment in Maryland, he would print a whole
body of the laws hitherto made in the Province and ease the public of the
charge of it and himself run the hazard of its publication by subscription.

Upon receipt of these proposals, the two Houses appointed a joint com-
mittee to treat with Parks on their separate articles or on "whatever else
should be thought necessary for his encouragement in the Service of the
Country," There was dissension among the conferees as to the acceptance
of the second article of the proposals, and reaching a deadlock in the discus-
sion of its terms they agreed finally to refer it back to the consideration of
both Houses. The first article of the proposals, with its very much greater
rate of payment than previously had been considered necessary, they ap-
proved with the qualification that the two thousand pounds of tobacco from
each county were to be paid by the year and not by thesession as the printer
had proposed. In regard to the third article, they recommended that the
body of laws should be published at the public charge, and that the printer
should be paid for them at the rate of twenty-four shillings a copy, the distri-
bution of the copies to be the same as that prescribed for the session laws.¹
The conferees of the Lower House reported to the delegates that they had
proposed in committee, under the second article, an allowance to the printer
of twenty shillings a sheet for their journals and proceedings, and upon re-
ceiving this report, the House approved it and

"Resolved that the said Parks be allowed after the Rate menconed ... for printing
any the publick proceedings of the last Sessions, And that he be Appointed and have the
Character of publick printer to the province."²

Although they concurred with the delegates on the first and third arti-
cles of the proposals, the Upper House objected to the printing of the jour-
nals and proceedings as "an unnecessary charge to the publick," and in regard
to the title which the printer should bear, their Honors informed the dele-
gates sharply that the Governor had already licensed Parks "to print the
Laws as Printer to his Lordship," and that title, their message said, they
conceived "to be a sufficient distinguishing Character."³

¹U. H. J., March 23, 1725/26, Archives of Maryland, 35:451 and 452.

²L. H. J., March 21, 1725/26, Archives of Maryland, 35: 476 and 477.

³U. H. J., March 23, 1725/26, Archives of Maryland, 35:455. In his first issue of the "Proceedings," later to be
described, Parks "played safe" by adopting for himself two titles; in the imprint he described himself as "Printer
to the Right Honourable the Lord Proprietor, and the Province."

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