88 HIS LORDSHIP'S PATRONAGE

further orders were issued to the clerks in an effort to aid the
Secretary in keeping his entries up to date. ⁵⁹

On the surrender of proprietary government, August 1, 1689,
the secretariat fell into abeyance, and custody of the current rent
roll passed to His Lordship's Agent and Receiver General. The
document itself was unfortunately destroyed when in 1699 van-
dals plundered Baltimore's house in Maryland and burned his
papers. ⁶⁰

His Lordship now leased the greater part of his territorial
revenue to two " Copartners in Farming the Quit-Rents, " James
Heath and Richard Bennett III, who among other things were to
make up a new and perfect rent roll of the province. ⁶¹ This record,
delivered in 1707, fell into confusion during the years of the
equivalent duty (1716-33) but was restored under Governors Ogle
and Bladen. ⁶²

Meanwhile a separate office of Rent Roll Keeper had been
created by the appointment of James Carroll about August, 1707,
at or soon after the expiry of Heath and Bennett's lease. ⁶³ He
and his successors continued to act, though apparently without
much diligence, throughout the interval of the equivalent duty.
On resumption of quit-rents, and pursuant to His Lordship's
instruction of June 18, 1733, the office was permanently divided
between a Keeper for the Western and one for the Eastern Shore. ⁶⁴
The last such officer on the Western Shore, William Hayward,
appointed July 4, 1772, died in March, 1774. His colleague for
the Eastern Shore, William Thomas, took office October 16, 1756,
and ceased to act in 1775.

The Rent Roll Keeper was to obtain, from those officials con-
cerned, notice of all patents, sales, and devises of land, to record

⁵⁹ Ibid., XV, 159-60.

⁶⁰ Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1706-08, arts. 1346, 1522.

⁶¹ This lease, dated Oct. 16, and Oct. 21, 1699, to run from Aug. 1, 1699, to
Aug. 1, 1707, involved the quit-rents and alienation fines but not the manor rents
or tobacco duties. It was in the form of an indenture tripartite, the other party
being Baltimore's son-in-law, Edward Maria Somerset of Pantley, Gloucester
(Calvert Papers, Nos. 135, 136, Md. Historical Society).

⁶² Archives, XLIV, 151-52; Cecilius Calvert's plan for collecting quit-rents, May
4, 1753 (Black Books, XI, 22, Hall of Records); Lord Baltimore's additional
instructions to Horatio Sharpe, March 30, 1753 (Portfolio No. 2, folder 4(1) par.
77, Hall of Records).

⁶² Provincial Court Record, liber TP, No. 4, folio 519 (Land Office): Archives
XXXVIII, 432.

⁶⁴ Ibid., XXXIX, 502.