PREFACE.

This volume continues the Acts and Proceedings of the Assembly
from October, 1678, to November, 1683. The former session was the
first held after June 15, 1676, so that there is no break in our series.
Of the session of 1678, the Upper House Journal, and of the two sessions
of 1681, the Lower House Journal, are wanting. Of the session of
April-May, 1682, we have only a small fragment of the Lower House
Journal.

Although several of these original journals are in a pitiable state from
the ravages of damp and insects—which probably is the reason that they
were not transcribed in the later copies—we have printed them as they
stand, as they are the original and only records extant, and, in the main,
intelligible. Where we happened to have another copy of any part of the
proceedings, we have filled out the gaps, marking the inserted words
by brackets. It is almost needless to repeat that the verbal and ortho-
graphical errors or eccentricities of the originals have been faithfully
reproduced.

As the Province grew to the north, St. Mary's at the extreme south
was found not central enough to be a convenient place of meeting, while
it had the further disadvantage of being insecure, as we find mention of
pirates threatening Matapany, and the need of a guard to protect the
Proprietary and the military stores. In 1654 and 1657 the Assembly
had met in Ann Arundel County, though rather for political than
geographical reasons. The session of 1683 was now held in the same
county, to the gratification of the delegates, though the seat of govern-
ment was not removed.

While there were some very slight chafings between the two Houses,
and while the presence among the Burgesses of that unsavory reprobate
Coode boded no good, yet great good feeling seems to have prevailed
throughout the entire Province; to which, no doubt, the personal pres-
ence of the Proprietary, who seems to have been sincerely liked and
respected, greatly contributed. Three times the Assembly voted him a
considerable gift, with expressions of gratitude, but he declined it as
unwilling further to burden the people. The records show no trace of
any ill feeling on religious grounds. Yet in a brief time many of these
very men were fomenting armed rebellion, and memorializing the King
on the subject of " the Popish injustice and tyranny under which they
had long groaned."