Letter of Transmittal.           xvii





        proceedings, would extend this introduction to formidable proportions. It does
        seem desirable, however, to comment upon a few of the cases which are of
        special interest.
          In 1661 John Nuthall, a Virginia merchant, purchased from Thomas Corn
        wallis two important manors of two thousand acres each on St. Inigo's River,
        St. Mary's County, known as Cornwallis' Crosse Manor and St. Elizabeth's
        Manor. The seller and his wife Penelope, and the purchaser, were all in Eng
        land at the time the deed was executed, although it was not recorded in Mary
        land until two years later (pages 3-6). It is known that Nuthall settled on his
        Maryland manor and died there about seven years after his purchases were
        made.
          In 1663 Christopher Jones mentions the tobacco due to him for his former
        services at the Susquehannough Fort (page 7). This was doubtless when Mary
        land soldiers were sent to assist the Susquehannough Indians in warding off an
        expected attack of the northern Iroquois. Several other references to Indian
        affairs are to be found. In a deed for land on the Choptank River there is a casual
        mention of the site of an Indian town when the land was conveyed (page 454).
        On one occasion a session of the court, which was to be held in June, 1665, was
        deferred by proclamation, one of the stated reasons for its postponement being,
        that the daily incursion of hostile Indians into the Province made its holding then
        inadvisable (page 465). A few weeks later two Indians were arrested and
        brought into court for trial, charged with the murder of a child. It was brought
        out by the trial that four Indians had come to the home of Mrs. Agatha Lang-
        worth, the widow of James Langworth, in Charles County. The men of the
        family were away at the time, but the Indians were frightened away from the
        house by Mrs. Langworth. The Indians found a servant woman with the two
        Langworth children in a cornfield nearby, where they had concealed them
        selves. One of the Indians struck down the boy with his tomahawk and cut off
        his head. The little girl fled and escaped. The Indian followed the servant and
        also struck her down with his tomahawk, but failed to kill her. Mrs. Lang-
        worth's signals brought several settlers from Bennet Marchegay's plantation
        nearby and the Indians were dri.ven away. At the trial the Indians do not
        appear to have made any defense. They were both found guilty, and were
        hanged at St. Mary's. Incidentally the record of the case preserves some scraps
        of the Indian language, which may be of interest to philologists (pages 481-
        484, 489, 491). At the October, 1665, session of the court, Chief Naucotamon
        of the Mattawoman tribe in Charles County came into court to inquire if the
        English wished his people to move farther away. The court rather cannily
        decided that it would be safer if the Indians remained near by, where they could
        be more easily watched, and the Chief was told that his people should remain
        where they were. The court also ordered that an Indian reservation be laid out
        to include their present habitation, and that no colonist might settle within
        three miles of this reservation (pages 512-513). In Charles County the
        Indians were disturbed by the planters' stock breaking into their fields. At the
        February, 1664, court Josias Fendall, the late Governor, on behalf of his









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