PREFACE.

The present volume contains the Proceedings and Acts of Assembly
from 1717 to and including the session of April, 1720, which was the
last held during the administration of Governor Hart. The record
of the Proceedings is taken up at the point to which it was brought in
Volume XXX.

The originals of some of the journals herein presented are missing
from the State Archives, but, fortunately, of every one that is missing
there is a duplicate in the collection of Calvert papers belonging to the
Maryland Historical Society. These duplicates were made for the use
and information of the Lord Proprietary in England, and were ac-
quired by the Society among the Calvert papers purchased in 1888.
The bound manuscript copies of the journals in the State Archives
were found upon comparison with these originals to be defective,
whole pages being omitted in places, as though the copyist had turned
over two leaves together without observing the resulting hiatus. For
the Proceedings printed in this volume the text of the journals con-
tained in the Calvert papers has been followed where the originals
were not to be found among the records belonging to the State, and the
contents of missing leaves have been supplied from the same source.
The Lower House Journal for the April Session of 1720 is from a fair
engrossed, and certified, contemporary copy. The source from which
the text is derived is printed at the head of each journal.

The object is to place before the reader in type precisely what is
contained in the manuscript record, and therefore no corrections have
been made of eccentricities of spelling, except in the case of obvious slips
of the pen, such as writing of for if, or on for one. Omitted words, or
such as are required to make the sense complete, when supplied by the
Editor, are included in square brackets []. The omissions in one
journal have in many cases been filled by reference to the corresponding
record in the proceedings of the other house.

The Acts of Assembly herein contained are copied from Bacon's
Laws of Maryland at Large, published in 1765, and therefore include
only the public general laws that were then in force. Liber LL. No. 4