REVENUE OFFICERS: PROPRIETARY 75

amercements were collected and paid in by the sheriffs at five
percent. Of the license fines, those Lord Baltimore sought to
impose on ferrymen, pilots, hawkers, and peddlers were either
not collected at all or were collected for so short a time as to
yield no considerable income. The ordinary license fines, pre-
viously treated, were, however, of some value. All of these license
fines, when collectable, were taken by the sheriffs, probably at
five percent, and, whenever His Lordship had them, were paid
to his Agent and Receiver. Waifs and strays were taken up by the
rangers and deodands by the sheriffs. ²

Baltimore's private income, much larger in amount, consisted
of: (1) certain duties enacted for his personal benefit and (2)
his territorial revenue as lord of the soil.

His Lordship's private port duties were collected by the Naval
Officers who, from 1716/7, had a commission of two percent.
The oldest such duty, and the only one constantly received, was
the fourteen pence sterling per ton enacted in 1661. ³ The other
two were on tobacco, the one as a partial and the other as a full
equivalent for the quit-rents and alienation fines. In 1671, for a
duty of twelve pence per hogshead, Baltimore agreed to receive
these payments in tobacco, instead of sterling, at a rate of two
pence a pound, the actual value of tobacco being then nearer one
penny. ⁴ When hogsheads were enlarged by an act of June, 1715,

² The position of waifs and strays was in doubt from September, 1692, until after
February, 1696/7 (cf. Archives, VIII, 362, 423; XXIII, 34). The earliest refer-
ence to rangers (not to be confused with bodies of troops, under the same desig-
nation, employed to defend the frontier) is in March, 1647/8 (Ibid., I, 228). They
were always appointed by the Governor, except in 16*84-89; and from March, 1702
(chap. 7), they had to obtain certificates of good character from their county courts
before appointment. On April 20, 1684, Baltimore appointed Col. Henry Darnall
and Col. William Digges Chief Rangers of the whole province to take up wild
horses for their own use and advantage; they in turn appointed deputies (Ibid.,
XVII, 241-42; VIII, 36-37). In the royal period rangers might keep a third of the
waifs and strays taken, and the rest went to the Governor for the King's use
(Ibid., VIII, 392-93; XX, 51), In 1735 His Lordship determined to dispense with
the rangers, " many of them having proved legal Thieves, " and to have the waifs
and strays taken up by sheriffs. However, prior to 1754 rangers were again
appointed (Lord Baltimore's Further Instructions to Agent Benjamin Tasker,
March 25, 1735, par. 8, Ibid., XXXIX, 509; Cecilius Calvert to Agent Edward
Lloyd, Dec. 10, 1754, Calvert Papers, II, 185). The fees they paid for their
commissions were a part of the Governor's revenue under the crown and a part
of His Lordship's revenue under the proprietary (cf. Provincial Court Judge-
ments, liber 21, folio 370, Hall of Records; and Barker, op. cit., 381).

³ The Lower House questioned the Proprietor's right to this duty in and after
1739; see Mereness, op. cit., 90-91, and Barker, op. cit., passim.

⁴ This duty should not be confused with the other 12d per hogshead given His
Lordship, by the same act, for support of government.