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Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1761-1769
Volume 32, Page 386   View pdf image (33K)
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386 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1769-1770.

Lib. C. B.

No. 20

His Excellency is pleased to acquaint this Board that he
has received Instructions from His Lordship the Right hon-
ourable the Lord Proprietary to appoint William Hayward
Esqr a Member of His Lordship's Council and the Upper
House of Assembly of this Province who being present took
the Several Oaths to the Government required by Law as also
the usual Oath of Councillor, repeated and Subscribed the
Oath of Abjuration and Test and then took his Seat at the
Board accordingly.
The following Letters from the Clergy were laid before this
Board by his Excellency, and being Read were Ordered to be
entered in the Council Records.

Annapolis Sept 17th 1770.
Sir
When we communicated to your Excellency the papers
relative to an American episcopate, we had in view at once to
inform your Excellency of the Steps we had taken, and to beg
your advice and direction; an attention which your Excel-
lency's attachment to the established Church deserves at our
hands. But they were delivered confessedly for your own
perusal and not intended for the General Assembly; whether
in point of punctilio you can apply to one purpose what was
designed by the Writers for another, there is not a properer
judge in the Province than yourself. Had they been intended
for the Inspection of the General Assembly, the Expressions
might perhaps have been more guarded; and should you still
think it necessary to submit the Matter to their consideration
we trust that we shall be able so to explain ourselves as to make
it manifest we meant to give as little umbrage to the General
Assembly as to your Excellency. Possibly we might have
taken that Step ourselves had we not apprehended it might
appear presumptuous in us to apply to them, in a matter which
seems to concern the prerogative alone.

The Plea for establishing a Commission for ecclesiastical
affairs was that the Clergy act lawlessly and are Subject to no
restraint: they found themselves therefore under a necessity
of moving for an American Episcopate, to convince the world
that they were far from desiring to continue exempt from the
control of all jurisdiction, and only opposed the establishment
of a Commission Court as arbitrary and unconstitutional.
As to the objection of the Signature and the Authority by
which the Committee of nine Clergyman Act in behalf of the
whole Clergy, we beg leave to observe that in the three Meet-
ings we have held, a majority of the whole Clergy have at-



 
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Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1761-1769
Volume 32, Page 386   View pdf image (33K)
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