PREFACE.

While the pages of this volume were passing through the press there were
found iu the office of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, at Annapolis, the
following manuscript volumes of the laws, viz.: LL. Xo. 4 (1711-1723),
L. No. 5 (1724-1731), H. S. (1752-1768), and R. G. (1769-1774), the
last also containing- the laws passed by the State Assembly in 1777 and several
following years. Liber B. L. C. (1731—1752) was also found in the Land
Office and all these volumes were transferred to the vault of the Maryland
Historical Society, with the prompt cooperation of their former custodians,
under the provisions of the Act of 1882, ch. 138. It has thus been possible to
print, for the first time in this volume, the private acts passed from 1730 to 1732,
as these were not included in the contemporary printing of the Session Laws.
Unfortunately, the printing of the volume had so far progressed that it was
necessary to place the private acts of 1730 in an appendix. It is expected to
print, in volume 38 of the Archives, all acts hitherto not included in the
series, from 1711 to 1729, and hereafter to publish all the acts of each session
in their proper place. We shall thus possess the complete corpus of the
Provincial statute laws of the Eighteenth Century, which fact is one which must
cause considerable pleasure to every lover of the history of Maryland. In
these cataclysmic times, it is often a delight to divert one's thoughts to the
affairs of a quiprcr and simpler age and the picture of that age is now more
complete, because of the ability to read the. entire enactment of each session of
the legislature: The private acts, which generally relate to naturalization of
individuals, and to the correction of defects in deeds and wills, are of
considerable value for deciding questions of pedigree and title to land.

The Proceedings of the Upper House were not printed during this period.
The Lower House, at the Session of 1730, printed its Proceedings, periodically,
in numbers, each containing four pages, an extremely early instance of such
periodical publication. The first seven of these numbers are found in the
Society's library and the New York Public Library has ten of them. The
same library contains the only copies I know of the Proceedings of the Session
of August, 1731.

The Calvert Papers contain manuscript originals of the Upper House
Proceedings of 1732, and similar originals for part of the Lower House
Proceedings for 1731 are listed in the calendar of Maryland Archives.