xlviii      The First Century of the Court of Chancery.

         Two days later at a Council held, July 28, 1694, Colonel Nicholas Greenberry
        delivered the Broad Seal to the new Governor “which his Exncy was pleased to
        leave upon the Board with the Gentlemen of the Councill to be put in the
        Custody and Charge of such person as they shall think fit; but upon consider-
        ation had it was Agreed upon to be his Exncies Right and that the same should
        be Returned to his again to dispose thereof as seems best to his Exncy and
        thereupon Sr Thomas Lawrence tooke Charge of the same to Redeliver it to
        his Exncy (Arch. Md. xx, 126). At a Council held July 30, 1694, the
        Governor delivered “at the Board, unto the honoble Coil Henry Jowles, the
        Broad Seal of the Province to be Keeper thereof; and it being moved by his
        Exncy to know how the Court of Chancery has usually been held in this
        Province; thereupon W Kenelm Cheseldyn was inquired off about the premises,
        who being asked the question does say that the same Judges which heard &
        determined Matters at Common Law have generally likewise determined
        Matters in Equity Ordered thereupon that the Court of Chancery continue to
        proceed in all respects as formerly, the Judiciall part thereof only at present
        excepted” (Arch. Md. xx, 128).
         The order that the Chancery continue to proceed in all respects as formerly
        apparently referred only to the “ordinary” functions of the Chancellor in
        sealing writs and other instruments. It was soon to develop however, that a
        change in the personnel of the courts was in contemplation, so that the same
        judges would not sit in all the higher courts of the Province—i.e. in the Council,
        Provincial Court and Chancery Court, and that this had been the reason for
        excepting “the judicial part” of the Chancery from the orders to “proceed in
        all respects as formerly “. It was further ordered at the same session that
        Greenberry, former Keeper of the Great Seal, had liberty to collect the fees due
        him for business passed under the Seal from the time of Andros' accession to
        the present time, and that the Clerk of the Provincial Court give him a list of
        all such fees due for processes, precepts, commissions, etc., issued out of that
        office (Arch. Md., xx, 128).
         Among the long list of complaints made under date of November 22, 1691,
        against Lord Baltimore to the Lords of Trade and Plantation by the Protestant
        Associators, after the Proprietary government was wrested by them from him
        in 1689, was one that all the judges of common law, Chancery, and Probate
        courts, and the members of the Upper House, were the self same persons and
        entirely under the domination of the Proprietary (Arch. Md., viii, 219). The
        evils latent in such a judicial system are only too obvious when it is realized that
        the same men sitting in the Upper House as the appellate court, also reviewed
        there the decisions they had previously made below in the Provincial Court,
        although to their credit it must be said that they not infrequently reversed
        themselves.
         Acting under instructions contained in his commission Nicholson now pro-
        ceeded to reorganize the higher courts of the Province. At a Council meeting
        held, September 22, 1694, the attorneys then at St. Mary's City were called into
        consultation, and at a meeting held on September 28, their recommendations
        were presented to the Council. The lawyers signing the report were Robert
        Smith, Kenelm Cheseldyne, Edward Boothby, William Dent, and Philip Clarke.