ALL SORTS OF CLERKS 53

salary out of the public levy, for they contended that he ought
to be paid from His Lordship's funds for support of government.
They were finally prevailed upon to vote his arrears in May, 1756,
and again in December, 1773. But at the latter date they abolished
his salary. ⁶

The Clerk of the Council was also allowed, out of the public
levy, small additional sums for particular services required by
law. ⁷ Under royal government he several times applied for a
separate allowance to cover the cost of writing materials and the
hire of a clerk assistant, but this the Lower House consistently
denied him. In lieu thereof the Council gave him, temporarily in
1695 and permanently some years later, the amercements in the
Provincial Court. ⁸

The fees from 1767 through 1769 averaged 7879 pounds of
tobacco, or about £ 33 sterling, a year; and the net value of the
amercements may have been about 1000 pounds of tobacco, or
£ 5 sterling. ⁹ These, together with his salary of £ 50, eventually
paid, made up a revenue of £ 88 or £ 90 sterling in all. And as
Clerk of the Upper House he had other fees and another salary
amounting together to about the same figure.

The fees of the Clerk of the Upper House were first settled in
May, 1669, when that body allowed him, together with a special
charge for each naturalization, treble the fees of any county clerk
for the same service. ¹⁰ A separate table of fees was approved by
His Lordship in Council, Nov. 10, 1682, and the fees then settled
remained unchanged down to the end of colonial times. ¹¹

In the early proprietary period the clerk of each house had also
received in the public levy an allowance roughly proportionate
to the length of each session. ¹² At the inception of royal govern-

⁶ Ibid., LII, 404-13; LXIV, 79-80. On political controversies over the clerk's
salary see Mereness, op. cit., 368-73, and Barker, op. ch., passim.

⁷ See for example the Clerk of the Council's accounts rendered in 1765,
Archives, LIX, 115-30.

⁸ Ibid., XX, 229, 468; XXIII, 270; XXII, 62, 64, 328; XXVII, 44; XXX, 25.

⁹ For the fees in tobacco, 1767 through 1769, see Ibid., LXII, 232, or Maryland
Gazette, Nov. 29, 1770. Gov. Ogle declared in 1745 that the provincial amerce-
ments were worth clear " not above One Thousand Pounds of Tobacco per annum,
communibus annis" (Archives, XL1V, 148); this would be about £5 sterling,
but Ogle may have consciously understated the true amount. In 1754 John Ross,
as Clerk of the Council, received in fees and amercements combined £ 85 currency
or about £43 sterling (Portfolio No. 3, folder 30, Hall of Records).

¹⁰ Archives, II, 192, 199.

¹¹ Ibid., VII, 375; XIII, 107.

¹² By an act of March, 1641/2, the Clerk of Assembly was given fifty pounds