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Volume 662, Page 100   View pdf image (33K)
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100 HIS LORDSHIP'S PATRONAGE

We have seen that in 1694, when the office of Surveyor and
Comptroller General was abolished, the three Collectorships were
retained, with the same fees but with their share of the duty
reduced to a fifth. 42 However, salaries, paid in England, were
soon established by a Treasury warrant of November 20, 1696,
to begin at Midsummer, or in some cases at Christmas, of the
following year. The Collector of Patuxent was to have £80
sterling and those of North Potomac and Pocomoke £60 each.
The Collector of Chester and Patapsco, when appointed in 1752,
was also given £ 60 a year. 43

Deputy Secretary Edmund Jenings, in 1744, estimated the fees
of the Patuxent Collectorship at about £250 currency. These,
together with the salary of £ 80 sterling, would amount, he sup-
posed to £ 260 sterling a year in time of peace. 44 Governor Sharpe,
in 1759, valued the Collectorship of North Potomac at £ 150
sterling and that of Pocomoke at £80 or £90. The office of
Chester and Patapsco, he wrote, brought in little more than its
salary of £ 60 a year. 45

The two Riding Surveyors originally appointed, that is, Thomas
Collier (in 1695 for the entire Eastern Shore) and Daniel Pearce
(in 1695/6 for Bohemia and Sassafras), were at first paid by

customs house was at Annapolis, kept a deputy on Patuxent River and allowed
him one quarter of the fees paid there (John Williams to Customs Commissioners
at Boston, May, 12, 1770, Maryland Historical Magazine, XXVII [1932], 231-32).
On leave to act by deputy in the home port see Horatio Sharpe to Philip Sharpe,
July 10, 1760 (Archives, IX, 446).

42 Collectors' fees in Maryland were determined by an act of October, 1694 (chap.
10) and were unchanged down to the end of colonial times. They were identical
with the Naval Officers' fees, and, as the law had failed to specify sterling, they
had later to be taken in provincial currency. Collectors might also receive
"gratuities, " under an act of 6 and 7 William III, for services done outside the
legal hours of work or for taking extra trouble. After 1695 any customs officer
informing against an illegal trader could collect an " emolument, " which in
Maryland amounted to one third the value of the goods forfeited (Hoon, op. cit.,
215, 218; Customs Commissioners to Francis Nicholson, Dec. 19, 1695, Archives.
XX, 341).

43 The express purpose of the salary was to enable the Collector to keep a boat
and hands. Calendar of Treasury Books, XI, 313; Public Record Office, Treasury,
11/24, 155-56; Audit Office, b. 773, r. 907 to b. 821, r. 1071, LC; "A List of
Officers of the Customs... 5th July 1776 " (Maryland Historical Magazine, XXVII
[1932], 239).

44 Edmund Jenings to Lord Baltimore, Aug. 28, 1744 (Archives, XLII, 670).
An anonymous estimate of about the same time values the. Patuxent Collectorship
at £ 300 sterling a year (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, ser. I, vol. VII
£1801], 202-03).

45 Horatio Sharpe to Cecilius Calvert, July 13, 1759; Horatio Sharpe to William
Sharpe, July 8, 1760 (Archives, IX, 348, 437).


 

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