Preface. xi

The period which is covered in the volume is one of considerable interest.
The controversy as to whether the English Statutes extended to Maryland
was at its height. The perennial struggle over the regulation of the officers'
fees was at an acute stage. The great staple of the Province, tobacco, was
in a depressed condition and earnest efforts were made to regulate it. The
Session of 1728 provided for new County Seats for Calvert and St. Mary's
Counties and gave them their present names: Prince Fredericktown and
Leonardtown. Among the Acts of the Session of 1729 is one incorporating
Baltimoretown on the north side of the Patapsco River, thus beginning the
history of that great commercial emporium and manufacturing centre which
now contains about half the population of the State. The vice of local legis-
lation had already begun and we find an Act for the destruction of bears in
Somerset County. " Languishing debtors " who are to be set free, deeds to
land which need confirmation, naturalization of individual foreigners, take up
part of the time of each session. The defects in the testamentary law receive
consideration, the importation of convict felons is restrained (see Sellers'
" Convict Laborers in Maryland " in 2 Md. Hist. Mag. 33), new parishes are
formed, parish boundaries are changed, new parish churches are authorized.
In the session of 1729, considerable acrimony developed between the two
Houses over the bill concerning deer, and also over the amendment of the
testamentary law; and the proper deference of one body for the other received
discussion which was characterized by some bitterness. A curious question
was then raised as to the right of the Proprietary to veto bills.

Benedict Leonard Calvert, the second son of Benedict Leonard Calvert, the
third Lord Baltimore, and his wife, the Lady Charlotte, daughter of the Earl
of Lichfield, and grand-daughter of Charles II, was born on September 20,
1700, and died, unmarried, June i, 1732. The chief sources of information
as to him are articles in the Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 3, pp. 190 and
283. He was a genial, studious, highminded man of upright life and warm
friendships, among which was a very strong one for Thomas Hearne, the
antiquary, who was twenty years his senior. (References to Calvert in
Hearne's Journal as printed by the Oxford Historical Society are reprinted in
Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. I, p. 274; Vol. 3, pp. 190 and 283 ff; Vol.
i o, p. 373 ff, and Vol. n, p. 283 ff.)

In 1717, Calvert went to France and wrote a letter to Hearne, on receipt
of which the following entry was made in Hearne's Journal: " I preserve the
letter out of the great respect I have for him, upon account of his quality, his
virtues and his skill and diligence in antiquities. It is an addition to my trou-
bles to lose the conversation of so accomplished a person." The two men
had similar tastes, for Calvert was the only literary man and scholar in the