viii Preface.

Council Proceedings begin March 23,1677/8, and end April 3,1683.

In the following text this volume is referred to as Liber R.

Liber RR and RRR. Two books bound in one small folio, sheep,
perfect, and in excellent order. Containing altogether 548 pp.
Lib. RR contains pp. 1-197. ^ begins with a commission of Cecilius,
Lord Baltimore, to his son Charles as governor, dated Dec. 8, 1671,
followed by other documents. Follow records of Councils held Deer.
13, 1671, Jany. 4, 1671/2, Oct. 3, 1672, Dec. 12, 1672, April 30, 1673,
Nov. 17, 1673, and continuing. It closes with a Council meeting of
July 7, 1683, followed by four blank pages. Liber RRR begins with a
new paging, 1-320, and 27 pp. index. The text opens with the oath
of a Justice of the Provincial Court, followed by a Council of Nov. 11,
1683, and ends with a proclamation of March 5, 1685/6.

The time covered by the present volume was one of disquiet and
apprehension. The northern Indians were restless, and, without enter-
ing into a general war, seem to have been harassing the tribes to the
south of them. The Senecas, especially, had been pressing hard on
the Susquehannoughs, who, having been much reduced in numbers by
an epidemic of small-pox, were no longer able to maintain themselves,
and fell back into southern Maryland into the lands formerly occupied
by the Pascattoways on the Potomac. Predatory bands, apparently
recruited from various tribes, like the free companies of the fourteenth
century, roamed about, doing miscellaneous mischief. Either one of
these bands, or else a strong party of the Senecas, followed the retreat-
ing Susquehannoughs, and either these or the Susquehannoughs
themselves did considerable damage in both Maryland and Virginia.
Several whites were murdered in both provinces. The Virginians,
rightly or wrongly, attributed these murders to the Susquehannoughs,
who had established themselves in an old Indian fort; and in Sep-
tember, 1675, a force under Col. John Washington joined a body
of Marylanders under Major Thomas Truman, and invested the Sus-
quehannoughs in their fort. The chiefs were invited to a parley, and a
number of them came out, who averred that the murders were done by
the Senecas, that they themselves were fast friends of the English, and
in proof they exhibited a Maryland medal with its gold-and-black
ribbon, which had been given them by Governor Calvert as a token of
amity and a protection. According to the statement of Truman, who
was afterwards brought to a reckoning for his share in this affair, the
Virginians could not be restrained, and seizing five chiefs who had