PREFACE.

It has seemed expedient to finish the publication of the Proceedings
of the Council, thus making the Series as complete as possible in that
respect; so the present volume, beginning where Volume XXXI left off,
covers the remainder of Governor Sharpe's administration, and that of
Governor Eden down to Sept. 24, 1770. The record of the last years of
Eden's government is lost, nor has diligent search in both Annapolis
and London succeeded in recovering it; a loss greatly to be regretted,
as the period thus left unrecorded was the eventful time just preceding
and contemporary with the outbreak of the Revolution.

The entire record of the Provincial Council from 1636 to 1770, so
far as it has been preserved, is now secure from future loss.

To the Council Journal have been appended the Minutes of the
Board of Revenue for 1768-1775, which throw valuable light on the
financial affairs and administration of the Province; also the opinions
of eminent English lawyers on the disputed question of the regulation
of officers' fees, and the orders and instructions issued to Governor
Eden on the accession of Henry Harford, a minor, to the Proprietary-
ship.

The marriage of Frederick, Lord Baltimore, to Lady Diana Egerton,
daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater, necessitated voluminous legal
formalities, among the rest a lease, probably unique of its kind, of the
entire Province of Maryland, and a Deed of Settlement which impresses
the present editor as the ne plus ultra of the conveyancer's art.

The disturbances attending resistance to the Stamp Act receive but
brief notice. They will be found in fuller detail in the Sharpe corre-
spondence.

The Tuscarora Indians of North Carolina having, some years before,
incorporated themselves in the Iroquois Confederacy (which thence-
forth was called the Six, instead of the Five, Nations) certain of the
Maryland Indians, claiming kindred with the Iroquois, removed in
1748 to Otsiningo on the Susquehannah, and were received into the
Confederacy. In 1767 the Nanticoke and Choptank Indians communi-
cated with their brethren at Otsiningo expressing a desire to join them,