44 HIS LORDSHIP'S PATRONAGE

Charles Carroll, on his appointment in July, 1688, was given
12, 000 pounds of tobacco a year or about £50 sterling. ²¹ He
continued to draw this sum, as Baltimore's Attorney General,
until April, 1716.

Meanwhile the Crown Attorney had obtained in 1706 a salary
of £ 100 sterling out of the fines and forfeitures. However, it is
unlikely that he got his money, for the Queen had earlier granted
all the unappropriated part of this fund to the Honorable Benedict
Leonard Calvert, His Lordship's son and heir. ²² In any case this
crown salary ended on the restoration of Baltimore's government
in 1715; and the proprietary salary ceased with Carroll's resig-
nation in the following April. Thereafter the Attorney General
was paid almost entirely in fees.

A table of such charges had been set up by the proprietor in
Council on April 29, 1684. ²³ Early in the royal period a new
schedule was settled by ordinance of Assembly, May 20, 1695.
Thereafter the Attorney General's charges were regulated by those
acts fixing lawyers' fees rather than by the general acts for officers'
fees. ²⁴ In consequence they were not reduced, with other officers'
fees, in 1719, and indeed they remained almost unchanged until
the Inspection Law of 1747. Together with lawyers' fees they
were then reduced twenty percent. In addition to his fees the
Attorney General received, after 1699, a per diem allowance for
his attendance on the Council. ²⁵

The office was of modest value, for its income, after 1750,
varied between £ 50 and £ 80 sterling a year. ²⁶ Moreover, its

nature barred an incumbent from defending many lucrative cases,
especially those of criminals. As a rule no prominent lawyer
would accept it unless he could also have some office of greater
value to augment his income. Consequently, from the appoint-

²¹ Ibid., VIII, 48; Provincial Court Record, liber TP, No. 4, folio 519 (Md.
Land Office).

²² Cf. John Seymour to Board of Trade, July 3, 1705, and Board of Trade to
John Seymour, Feb. 4, 1705/6 (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1704-05, art.
1210; 1706-08, art. 84); also Archives, XXV, 210, 320.

²³ Ibid., XVII, 246. By this date establishing fees in Council was already a
grievance; cf. Ibid., VIII, 219.

²⁴ Ibid., XXXVIII, 113; XXII, 502; XXVI, 334; XXX, 248.

²⁵ Ibid., XXV, 25; XXII, 436.

²⁶ An estimate of 1754 gives the Attorney General a revenue of £ 160 currency
a year or about £80 sterling (Portfolio No. 3, folder 30, Hall of Records).
Governor Sharpe, in 1761, may have understated it at £ 50 sterling per annum
(Archives, XXXII, 27).