Letter of Transmittal.             xxi






       was tried and found guilty of manslaughter. He craved the “ benefit of clergy,”
       and upon demonstrating to the court that he could read from the Book, he was
       branded in the right hand and released. The court then issued an order that
       each county should be equipped with branding irons (pages 10-17). The arrest
       of Captain Samuel Tilghman was ordered at the March, 1663, court, because
       he had spoken contemptuously of Lord Baltimore and His Lordship's govern
       ment (page 18). This Samuel Tilghman, a cousin german of Dr. Richard
       Tilghman, who in 1668 founded in Maryland the distinguished family of this
       name, had been commissioned in 1658 “Admiral of the Maryland Fleet,” and had
       doubtless been identified with the Parliamentary or anti-Proprietary faction. An
       early instance of property left for the endowment of a school in Maryland is
       brought out in connection with a dispute which arose in the settlement of the
       estate of a certain Edward Lotton, who left property to be used for this purpose,
       “or for other pious uses.” Ralph Crouch, a schoolmaster, who was one of the
       executors of Cotton's will, had returned to England and was represented before
       the court by a Jesuit priest, Francis Fitzherbert, as his attorney. The case was
       heard February 3, 1663, and several months later a decision was rendered
       favorable to Crouch as executor (pages 19-23, 135).
         A number of admirality cases came before the Provincial Court, sitting
       in its capacity as a Court of Admiralty, among the offices conferred upon
       the Governor by the Proprietary being that of High Admiral of the Province.
       Sitting May 8, 1663, as a Court of Admiralty, the justices of the Provincial
       Court heard a case involving the violation of the English Navigation Act by
       Joseph Winslow, master of the ship Content of Boston, who had failed
       to give bond before loading his vessel with tobacco in the Patuxent River. The
       ship was ordered forfeited to the Lord Proprietary (pages 23-24). We find
       the court sitting in February, 1663, in an admiralty case of considerable inter
       est. The ship St. George of Bantry, Ireland, had been sold by Dutch owners
       to a group of purchasers, who were residents of Bantry. The ship was seized
       as a prize at the Barbadoes and brought to Maryland. The seizure seems to have
       been made on the ground that she was a Dutch ship violating the British Naviga
       tion Act. Suit was brought by the Irish owners to recover possession, and a
       number of interesting depositions were filed in reference to the ownership of
       both the ship and cargo. While action in the case was pending a letter was
       received from Lord Baltimore directing the Governor and Council to drop the
       case and to release the ship and its cargo to its Irish owners, in which Baltimore
       describes the owners as “ Coll George Walters a prson of quality and my noble
       ffriend, and others his Partners” (pages 138, 148-154).
         At the 1664 and 1665 sessions of the court the ownership of another vessel
       was brought into question. A frigate called the Expedition, David Anderson,
       master, had been owned by two partners, Henry Goodrick and Henry Hudson.
       Goodrick had sold his interest to a certain William Carver of Elizabeth River,
       Virginia, and it appears that Hudson had assented to the sale, but had not signed
       a release of his title. Carver then chartered the ship to a certain Isaac Bedlow of
       New York, and somewhat later, Hudson brought suit in New York for posses
       sion of the vessel, and was referred to the Maryland courts. He then brought