REVENUE OFFICERS: PROVINCIAL 73

The first Supply Act, in July of 1740, appointed as Agents Mr.
Benjamin Tasker, Colonel Robert King, and Dr. Charles Carroll
of Annapolis. These were to receive £ 5000 currency out of the
Loan Office and to disburse it in providing victuals, transport, and
so forth for those five hundred men to be raised for an expedition
against the Spanish Indies. They were then to repay this amount
into the Loan Office by receiving, from the Naval Officers, one
half of such duties on liquors, Irish servants, and Negroes as had
previously been applied toward defraying the public charge and,
from the sheriffs, the ordinary license fines, now set aside for this
purpose. On all moneys so received and applied they were to
have a commission of five percent.

The same persons were by an act of July, 1746, appointed to
receive £ 3000 currency out of the Loan Office and to spend it in
providing food and transport for the Maryland volunteers, now
going to Albany for an attack on Canada. For this service each
Agent was paid, under a law of that November, £ 100 currency,
about £ 50 sterling, out of the public levy. By this latter act new
Agents were appointed with similar duties and the same com-
mission of five percent.

Under a Supply Act of July, 1754, Governor Sharpe himself
received and disbursed the funds provided, without remuneration.
But under the next and last such law, that of March, 1756, Agents
were again appointed. This very complicated enactment names
William Murdock, James Dick, and Daniel Wolstenholme and
gives them a commission of two and a half percent on all sums
received and applied. Its provisions, modified by later acts, finally
expired on November 26, 1763. The value of previous Agencies
is uncertain, but Sharpe rated this office under the law of 1756 at
nearly £ 300 sterling a year. ⁴⁸

⁴⁸ Horatio Sharpe to Lord Baltimore, June 30, 1757 (Archives, IX, 35),