x Preface.

indirect means, to deprive the purchaser of his property rights in his
servant. The Lower House subsequently sought to accomplish the
same end by providing for the sale out of the province of servants com-
mitted to jail as persons of ill repute, and for whom no one would give
security, with the ultimate aim, apparently, of having many convict
servants so adjudged, committed and disposed of. This measure was
opposed by the Upper House and failed of adoption.

Efforts made to enact laws for improving the quality of tobacco
failed through differences between the two houses of Assembly, though
all admitted the urgent need of a remedy for the existing conditions.
Governor Calvert, who had sought to secure concert of action with
Virginia (where legislation upon the subject also failed), wrote to the
Governor of that colony in July, 1726, after the adjournment of the
Assembly which had been convened specially to deal with the subject,
that there had been nothing done; though all agreed as to the necessity,
there were diversities of opinion as to the means, and none would yield
to the opinion of others (Archives, XXV, 458).

In the renewed debates about the fees allowed to public officers, the
Lower House proposed to reduce them to one-half the existing rates;
and over the allowances claimed by the members of the Upper House,
and formerly made to them, for their services as members of the
Council out of Assembly time, the dispute was bitter, the tone of the
Lower House being especially truculent. And the bitterness extended
to the debates relating to the disposition of servants committed to jail
as persons of ill repute. The Upper House consisted of the Council
appointed by the Proprietary, and its members were characterized by
the Lower House as instruments of the prerogative, while its own
members, it was pointed out, were the representatives of the people and
defenders of their liberties.

The antagonism that was fomented between the two houses may
be reasonably imputed to the influence of Thomas Bordley, a man of
overbearing temper, who after holding several minor public offices,
including that of clerk of the Provincial Court, was made a member of
the Council. Shortly after the session of Assembly in August, 1721,
the Governor dismissed him from the Council for giving what the
Governor deemed pernicious advice, deliberately designed, if followed,
to cause dissension between himself and the people of the province.
This dismissal deprived Bordley of his seat in the Upper House. In the
ensuing year, 1722, he was elected as a delegate to the Lower House,
where he at once became a dominating factor. He was a member of