CHAP.
  VIII.

to appoint persons, in conjunction with the continental commissioner, to sign them.  They then direct,
that any resident of the state, before the 1st of January, 1781, bringing into the continental treasury,
within the state, any sum not exceeding 110 dollars for every £. 100 to which he shall stand assessed for
the present year, shall receive, in exchange, at the rate of 6 dollars of the new bills for every 200 dollars of
the old; and that after the 1st of January, any person whatever may, at the same rate, receive new bills
for the old, until the treasurer shall have received to the amount of 20,540,000 dollars of the old.  And
for every 200 dollars of the old, thus brought in, 4 dollars of the new bills shall be set apart for the use
of congress.
    To secure the redemption of these new bills, there shall, in each of the five following years, be an
assessment of property; and for every £. 100 there shall be paid a tax of one bushel of wheat, or 25lb. of
tobacco, or one dollar in silver or in the paper itself.  The product of this tax is to be invioably appropriated
to the redemption of one sixth of the emission in every year after the 1st of January, 1781.  Besides
this fund, there is another, which is the product of certain duties imposed by this act on exported
tobacco and iron, on every kind of imported spirit, wine, coffee, loaf sugar, and negroes, on marriage
and ordinary licences, on registers for vessels, on commissions of marque and reprisal, on home-made
spirit, and on billiard tables.  All fines, forfeitures, amerciaments, and forfeited recognizances, constitute
an additional fund.  And the specie arising from these funds to be set apart, until a sufficient sum
be collected, for redeeming a sixth part of the bills, and the bills themselves paid in are to be retained.
    All continental money, brought into the treasurer, is to be exchanged for the said bills, and the treasurer
is directed to offer the said bills to every public creditor, calling on him for payment for any part of
the debt, not exceeding the creditor's assessment, at the rate of one dollar for 33 1/3 dollars continental.
    The new bills, so to be issued, are made a legal tender amongst individuals, at the rate of £. 166 13 4
for every £. 100 sterling, and at par for current money debts.  And the chancellor, or the general court,
on petition of a debtor, may, in a summary way, call on the creditor, his representative, attorney in fact,
assignee, or assignee's representative, and compel him to receive his balance, and deliver up his securities.
Where there are mutual debts, either of these courts may cause the debts to be set against each other,
and appoint a person to strike the balance.  Where a tender has been made, or the creditor has kept out
of the way to avoid it, the costs of the petitioner are to be allowed. And in any action for money due,
the same may in these bills be brought into court, and thereupon the court shall proceed as aforesaid.
    But in case of a depreciation of the new bills, the chancellor, and the judges of the general court, or a
majority of them, are authorised between the 10th and 20th of October next, to determine at which exchange
the said bills shall discharge debts contracted before the 1st of September, 1776.  Such determination
shall be the universal rule, until the 1st day of the following May term, when, in case of further
depreciation, another scale is, in the same manner, to be established, and to prevail until the next term,
when a similar proceeding shall take place.  And each determination is to be published in the news-papers
of Annapolis and Baltimore.
    N. B.  That part of the act which imposes taxes for sinking the new emission, has, by a subsequent
act, been repealed.

    To raise 1,400 to serve during the war.  This number is apportioned amongst the several counties,
the militia of which is to be divided into as many classes as their respective quotas amount to; each class
is, by the 15th of July, to furnish a recruit, take up a deserter, or pay the bounty, which shall be given
by the lieutenant, or in his room by any field officer, not exceeding £. 15 out of every £. 100 of the
assessed property belonging to the class; each person's proportion to be ascertained by any three of the
lieutenant and field officers, together with at least one tax commissioner, and levied on any of his property,
under the warrant of the lieutenant or a field officer.
    Each recruit is to serve during the war, and at the conclusion of it to be entitled to 50 acres of land,
and his property, during his service, and for four years after, is to be exempt from taxation.