86 HIS LORDSHIP'S PATRONAGE

Frederick County. Thereafter the western post rose in value, out-
stripping its sister office on the Eastern Shore. In late colonial
times this eastern Surveyorship was worth from less than £ 70 to
over £ 100 sterling while that of the Western Shore may have
brought in about £ 120 or £ 130 a year. ⁴⁶

Sharpe reported to the Board of Trade in 1761 that Deputy
Surveyors' offices were " of very little value, some of them not
£ 10 a year but three or four of them who live in Counties where
there still remains a good Deal of Vacant Land may get from
£ 50 to £ 150 per Annum. " ⁴⁷ He wrote again in 1768 that " two
or three of these [deputy's] Offices may perhaps bring in near
£ 200 a year, but they earn it dearly the duty being very slavish,
& the rest of them are so little worth that few Gentlemen in case
of a Vacancy make Application for a Commission. " ⁴⁸ Under
the Constitution of 1776 the Deputy Surveyors became County
Surveyors.

5. THE EXAMINER GENERAL.

This officer, at first called a Deputy Surveyor General, made his
appearance on Lord Baltimore's appointment of Robert Jones in
or just before May, 1683. ⁴⁹ His fees, for examining and signing
certificates of survey, were fixed by the Conditions of Plantation,
April 5, 1684. ⁵⁰ The last colonial incumbent, Dr. Upton Scott,
appointed in October, 1761, left Maryland in 1776. The office
itself was to be reestablished, under the new state government,
in 1782.

Although this was a useful post, its manner of establishment,
by His Lordship's prerogative alone, offended the people, who in
1690 and again in 1728 tried to have it abolished. ⁵¹ Moreover, the

⁴⁶ In 1754 the western Surveyor General received £226. 11. 7 1/2 and the eastern
officer £ 103. 0. 0, both in the local currency, which in face value was at twenty-five
percent discount from sterling and which sometimes passed at as low as fifty
percent (Portfolio No. 3, folder 30, Hall of Records). In his report to the Board
of Trade, Dec. 21, 1761, Gov. Sharpe valued the two offices at £ 130 sterling each.
To Secretary Cecilius Calvert, Sept. 12, 1762, he valued the eastern Surveyorship
at over £ 100; but to Secretary Hugh Hamersley, July 25, 1768, he valued it at a
mere £60 or £70 sterling (Archives, XXXII, 27; XIV, 68, 518).

⁴⁷ Horatio Sharpe to Board of Trade, Dec. 21, 1761 (Ibid., XXXII, 27).

⁴⁸ Horatio Sharpe to Hugh Hamersley, July 25, 1768 (Ibid., XIV, 513).

⁴⁹ Patent Record, liber 21, folio 544 (Land Office).

⁵⁰ Archives, XVII, 240, 364.

⁵¹ See the "Additionall Articles... against the Lord Baltemore and his
Deputies, " 1690, Ibid., VIII, 219. In 1728 the Upper House dissuaded the Lower
by proposing instead to ask discontinuance of the Surveyorships General (Ibid
XXXVI, 161. 165, 167).