88 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1696/7-98.

           P. R. O. lords, and not Tenants. If I am not very much mistaken,

         Maryland, 9. there is very little Land to be taken up either in Virginia or

                Maryland, except it be severall miles beyond any of the

                Inhabitants. And those distant and stragling Plantations,

                wherein there is often not above one or two men, which is

                sometimes the cause of murders or plunderings by the Indians

                while they are hunting, or in their going from or returning to

                their severall Nations.

                  No 5 is a list of Navigation Bonds &c being 28, for which

                Iudgments are obtained.

                  No 6 is a List and an additional one of Navigation bonds for

                which no certificates are produced, being 115. And in the

                said N° 6 is a List of Navigation Bonds being 19, for which

                no Certificates produced, and on which Declarations are

                drawn, and there is also in No 6 a List of Navigation Bonds

                being 6, principals, noe securities to be found.

                  No 7 is a List of Bonds being 60 taken in Maryland, for

                which legal Certificates have been produced.

                  I humbly transmit these Lists to Your Lordships and hope

                that your Lordships will be pleased by the next Fleet if not

                sooner to send orders what shall be done with those Bonds

                upon which Iudgment is already and may be obtained; for I

                have ordered his Majesty's Lawyers to prosecute those that

                can give no good reason for the suspension of their prose

                cution, but I presumed with the advice of his Majesty's Hon

                ourable Council, and at the most earnest request of the House

                of Burgesses, and severall of the principall Inhabitants of this

                his Majesty's Province to suspend the execution of the for

                feited Bonds until his Majesty's Royall pleasure was known

                therein. If the Iudgmts had been executed I do not know

                whether his Majesty would have gotten 500 li by them. And

                the officers must, have been forced to have executed them

                with Rigour. And I did not know what evill effect it might

                have had. If his Majesty be graciously pleased to grant the

                humble petition of the Burgesses (and what they suggest

                therein I must needs own to be true) yet I most humbly propose

                that some of them may be made examples, especially some of

                those who have been illegal Traders within these 2 or 3 years.

                Presently after my arrival I gave publick notice of my designe

                to prosecute illegal Traders, and had it recorded in the first

                Provinciall Court; so that they cannot pretend not to have

                been cautioned to leave their old Custome of illegal Trade,

                and becoming Suretyes in Navigation Bonds.

                  But I have observed that in these parts the People begin to

                pretend Custome, and claime it as their Common Law, which

                if not timely prevented I humbly conceive may be a disservice,

                and prejudicial to his Majesty's Interest. For if they be