OTHERS GREAT AND SMALL 43

2. LEGAL OFFICERS.

Less valuable than the places hitherto examined, the post of
Attorney General was created by a commission to Secretary Lew-
ger, September 6, 1644, and was separated from the secretariat
on appointment of Lieutenant Richard Smith, Sr., September 28,
1657. ¹⁶ Under royal administration there were two Attorneys
General. Charles Carroll, who had been appointed in 1688, served
the Lord Proprietary while successive incumbents acted under the
crown. On May 1, 1716, Colonel William Bladen, the former
Crown Attorney, succeeded Carroll as Lord Baltimore's officer. ¹⁷
The last provincial incumbent, Thomas Jenings of Annapolis,
sworn in on October 18, 1768, was to be appointed in 1777 the
first state Attorney General.

As early as April, 1688, this officer had begun to appoint depu-
ties, one in each county. ¹⁸ These were at first called " His Lord-
ship's Attorneys, " but after the establishment of royal government
they were always styled " Clerks of the Indictments. " Their fees
were settled by an act of April, 1698, and were thereafter regu-
lated with those of the Attorney General. As these deputy offices
were of slight value and moreover prevented an incumbent's
defending criminal cases, competent lawyers would not accept
them. ¹⁹ Under state government the Clerks of the Indictments
were to become County Prosecutors.

Prior to 1650/1 there was no provision for payment of the
Attorney General, who until 1657 was also Secretary. By a pro-
clamation of January 10, 1650/1, however, Governor William
Stone settled upon him a thousand pounds of tobacco a year, about
four or five pounds sterling; and this salary was doubtless raised
upon separation of the Attorneyship from the Secretary's office. ²⁰

places the Commissary's gross income at £900 sterling (Massachusetts Historical
Society, Collections, series I, vol. VII [1801], 202-03). As the net income in 1754
was about £ 570 (cf. note 14 above) and the gross income for the same year about
£900 (the average for 1745-52), the total expenses were evidently about £330
sterling. For some other contemporary estimates see Cecilius Calvert to Horatio
Sharpe, Sept. 9, 1755; Horatio Sharpe to Board of Trade, Dec. 21, 1761; and
Horatio Sharpe to Hugh Hamersley, July 25, 1768 (Archives, XXXI, 490; XXXII,
27; XIV, 519).

¹⁶ Ibid., III, 158; X, 542.

¹⁷ Provincial Court Judgments, liber 15, folio 630 (Hall of Records).

¹⁸ Archives, VIII, 17, 18, 30.

¹⁹ See the reply of the Upper to the Lower House, Oct. 26, 1720,
XXXIV, 46.

²⁰ Ibid., III, 261.
'