xiv                   Preface.

    therefore sent Colonel Darnal with about ten men to bring Coode and

    Fendal before him and the Council; Colonel Darnal came to Coode's

    when it was light and the Servants using to go to work opened the

    door, at which Colonel Darnal entered alone, leaving his Men without,

    and coming into Mr. Coode's Chamber, told him he was his Prisoner;

    Coode at first laid his hand upon his Sword, but at last yielded; after

    which Col. Darnal went over the River, and took Capt. Fendal also,

    and brought them before my Lord and Council. And the next day

    after, Mrs. Coode did Hector my Lord at a rate I never heard from

    a Woman before; by which you may conclude she was not run mad

    with the fright of her Husband's being pull'd out of his Bed, as we

    were told her son Slye faisly reports at London.

      Three or four days after I saw her at St. Maries, and then I did

    suspect she would not continue long in her wits, knowing she had

    been mad awhile upon the death of her eldest son, about the year

    1659 and had heard she sometimes fell into like Fits since.

      After this my Lord took Bail for Coode within five days, but Fendal

    was kept till my Lord had secured Lieutenant George Godfrey, who

    laid a Plot to unhorse his Captain, and carry the Troop to the rescue

    of Fendal, instead of searching for the Indians, that had Murther'd

    some of our Planters and were daily expected to fall into Charles

    County, in great numbers; as they afterwards did in less than three

    weeks.              -

      My Lord intends to send over their Tryals, that the World may see

    with how much Favour the Court proceeded, and to stop the Mouth

    of Calumny; so that I shall not trouble you now any further but ere I

    make an end, must present my own and my Wifes service to your

    second-self as you stile her ; and so subscribe

                       myself Sir, Your humble Servant

                                         Philip Calvert.

      From Patuxent River-side this 29” December 1 681.

      Liber H. D, from which nearly the whole of the present volume is

    taken, presents peculiar difficulties to an editor. The scribe, while

    entering the sessions of the Council in regular order, had a way of

    recording letters, commissions, and other documents at the end of the

    book, under a separate paging. Many of the entries in the body of

    the book are quite out of place, as if the writer had got his original

    notes confused, and worked them in wherever he found a blank space.

    As far as possible these have been brought into chronological order.