x                 Letter of Transmittal.

       ment of the several counties down to the close of the third quarter of the
       seventeenth century, together with brief biographical notes about the more
       important commissioners or justices who administered the judicial and civil
       affairs of each of these counties during the same period.
         The Committee on Publication wishes to repeat here what has already been
       said in the preceding volume of the Archives, of the debt which it is under to
       Judge Carroll T. Bond, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals and
       the outstanding authority on early Maryland jurisprudence, for the assistance
       he has given the editor in untangling many involved problems relating to the
       early legal procedure presented by the records of these four county courts.
       The committee further wishes to emphasize the fact that the publication of both
       these volumes has only been made possible by the untiring labor of Mr.
       Louis Dow Scisco, the associate editor, who has accomplished the very difficult
       task of deciphering and transcribing the almost illegible handwriting of the
       various court clerks. Mr. Scisco has also prepared the indices of both volumes.
         It is the intention of the Committee on Publication to follow these county
       court records with the publication of two volumes of the Archives containing
       the Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland covering the
       period from 1757 to 1759.
                             Respectfully submitted,
                                   J.     HALL PLEASANTS (editor),

                                 W.  STULL HOLT,

                                   RAPHAEL SEMMES,

                                       Committee on Publication.