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Volume 662, Page 77   View pdf image (33K)
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REVENUE OFFICERS: PROPRIETARY 77

parcels for long terms, often three lives. As the stewards managed
them badly, and as the tenants were shiftless and wasteful, these
lands brought in what seemed a disappointing return. 8 They were
finally cut up for sale in 1766. 9 Yet parts were still unsold fifteen
years later when the state of Maryland confiscated what remained.

At the restoration (1715) His Lordship's net private income
had reached about £ 3000 sterling a year. Under the Equivalent
Act (1716-33) it rose to £7000. 10 At mid-century it was some
£ 10, 000 a year; and on the eve of the Revolution it amounted
to around £ 12, 000. 11

As we have already examined the work of Naval Officers,
sheriffs, and rangers in collecting proprietary revenues, we shall
deal here only with the office of Agent and Receiver General
and with a number of subordinate posts concerned in territorial
affairs.

2. THE AGENT AND RECEIVER GENERAL.

This officer, whose post was created in Baltimore's commission
to Secretary Lewger, April 15, 1637, gained separate status on the
appointment of Job Chandler, August 1, 1651. 12 However, in
both proprietary periods the Agent had to work closely with the
Governor, and he was frequently joined in commission with other
officials.

On November 18, 1643, Baltimore appointed Governor Giles
Brent, Secretary and Receiver Lewger, and three others, " Com-

8 Stewards were appointed by the Governor who, prior to 1761, allowed them
gratuities for their services. Thereafter they might take five percent out of the
rents of the manor. See Lord Baltimore's instructions to Gov. Samuel Ogle,
June 18, 1733, and to Gov. Horatio Sharpe, Dec., 1760 (Archives, XXVIII, 68;
Portfolio No. 3, folder 5, Hall of Records).

9 See Baltimore's commission and instructions to Horatio Sharpe, Daniel Dulany,
and John Morton Jordan, Feb. 21, 1766 (Archives, XXX1I, 134-40), and
Mereness, op. cit., 53-55.

10 J. V. L. McMahon, An Historical View of the Government of Maryland
(Baltimore, 1831), 271; Cecilius Calvert to Horatio Sharpe, Feb. 28, 1764
(Archives, XIV, 137). Calvert seems to have erred in asserting that Maryland
never yielded over £ 1400 a year prior to 1716.

11 The net proprietary income was £ 9, 582. 2. 10 and £ 9, 661. 17. 5 1/4 in the years
1751 and 1752 (Calvert Paper No. 593, Md. Historical Society; Chalmers
Papers, Maryland I, 31, NYPL). Gov. Sharpe's secretary, John Ridout, in his
" Answers to Queries published in the London Chronicle 16-19 Sept. 1758, " rated
the annual net income at about £ 11, 000 sterling, and William Eddis, in 1772,
placed it at £ 12, 500. Its exact amount in 1774 was £ 11, 482. 9. 3 sterling (Port-
folio No. 2, folder 7a, Hall of Records; Eddis, op. cit., 125; Chalmers Papers,
Maryland, H, 20, NYPL). Cf. the figures in Barker, op. cit., 380-81.

12 Archives, HI, 53-54, 263-64.


 

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