xii Preface.

Two changes have been made in the volume from previous ones of the series.
In view of the high cost of paper and the voluminousness of the Assembly

Proceedings, each session is no longer given a separate title page. The two
indices formerly compiled have been replaced by one consolidated one, which
makes search for any subject easier. The manuscript records have been
followed absolutely, except in case of obvious errors. We have not the original
journals, but a contemporary copy, and the blunders of the copyist are
sometimes evident: thus, on page 37, the manuscript reads Charles Grove,
for dark's Grove and, on page 67, Col. Casparus Augustine Herman's family
name is written Thompson. On page 50, line 17, Lower has been substituted
for Upper.

For the text of this volume, we have taken the Proceedings from con-
temporary manuscript copies in the Calvert Papers and in the Maryland
Archives deposited in the Society's vault. The Acts have been reprinted from
the contemporary session laws, printed by William Parks, at Annapolis,
" Price Two Shillings, to those who bought the whole Body of Laws, and Two
Shillings Six Pence to others." We are again indebted to the kindness of the
Library of Congress for making photostatic copies of these session laws.

In an appendix will be found, taken from the Calvert Papers, etc., in the
Society's vault, certain documents relating to Gov. Benedict Leonard Calvert's
administration, and the years immediately succeeding, which have not been
printed previously in the volumes of the Archives.

Maclox once said that it was the duty of an historian to be continually
" perusing a vast number of things, for a few comparatively that one actually
collects." It is the province of a collection of archives to present this " vast
number of things " to each investigator, so that each one studying a certain
portion of history may collect the " comparatively few " things which are
indispensable to his knowledge of his subject. Without such srndy of archives,
a student founds his work upon shifting sand of tradition and second-hand
information. Sir Henry Spelman is reported to have said truly: " Grave est
omnia ab archivis rimari, et incertum est quod non inde petitur." (Madox,
History of the Exchequer, preface, page 4.)

Charles, fifth Lord Baltimore, the eldest son of Benedict Leonard, the
fourth Lord and third Proprietary, and his wife, Lady Charlotte Lee, was a
grandson of Charles II through his maternal grandmother, one of the King's
illegitimate daughters. At the time that his father left the Roman Catholic
Church, Charles was a minor and became a Protestant with him. Acceding
to his title, while yet a minor, he died at the age of 52 in 1751. From the
correspondence of his brother, Gov. Benedict Leonard Calvert, and from other
sources, we gain a picture of Charles, Lord Baltimore, as a vain, frivolous,