Introduction. ixxiii

than do his "proposals" which appeared in the proceedings of the Lower House
for the session of November-December 1758 (pp. 114-115), and relate to
such details as the arrangement of the laws by sessions, their titles, marginal
notes, revision of the manuscript, and time of publication, and provide for
the purchase by the Province for £200 of three copies for the Governor, Upper
House, and Lower House respectively, Bacon to be reimbursed by the sale
of all the additional copies (pp. 479-480). The Lower House appointed a
committee to prepare such a bill, which, after introduction, was amended in
committee of the whole as to the inclusion in the collection of the act of 1704
under which the Governor retained for his own use the twelve pence export
duty collected on every hogshead of tobacco shipped out of the Province, the
validity of which was denied by the Lower House. A motion that the laws
"in use" but "not in force" be not printed in the collection proper, but be
added in an appendix, was lost by a vote of 29 to 6. A motion that the act
by which the Lord Proprietary collected the twelve pence export duty tax on
tobacco be not put in the collection but in an appendix as "not in force", was
lost by a vote of 30 to 5. A motion that it be not inserted in the collection, "but
put in an Appendix", was adopted by a vote of 24 to n, the Proprietary mem-
bers voting in the negative (pp. 475-477). Before these amendments had
been adopted, it had been voted 18 to 17 that the Upper House be asked to
name certain of its members, who would then be nominated in a bill now being
drawn up in the Lower House, to act with members of the lower body for
encouraging Bacon in the publication of the laws (p. 475). The Upper
House replied to the message of the Lower House, dated May i, appointing
seven of its members (pp. 427, 482, 429, 483). The Lower House bill, with
these names included, was passed on May i, and sent to the Upper House (p.
483). There it was amended, apparently by the inclusion in the "Collection",
as "a law now in force," the act of 1704 imposing an export duty of twelve
pence a hogshead on tobacco, and by providing that taxes, varying in amount,
and totalling about £300, be imposed in the several counties for the purchase
of copies, and providing that eighteen copies be printed on large paper, in good
type and bound in calf skin and lettered, to be distributed to the Governor,
the two houses of the Assembly, the Provincial Court, and to each of the
fourteen counties (pp. 432-433). The inclusion of the tobacco export duty act
in the collection proper as insisted upon by the Upper House was a point on
which the Lower House was equally determined not to agree. The amended
bill as returned to it received no further attention by the Lower House at this
session, nor was any attempt to be made at later sessions "to encourage" by
legislation the publication of Bacon's "Collection of Laws". Its publication
was made possible later by private subscriptions and by the sale of copies to
the public, and it may be added that as printed it did contain the disputed to-
bacco export duty act. Its story, from its inception by Bacon to the publication
of this notable volume in 1766, is graphically told by Lawrence p. Wroth in his
History of Printing in Colonial Maryland, 1922 (pp. 103-110).