xxvi          Letter of Transmittal.






               Thomas Wynne of St. Mary's County sued our old acquaintance, William
             Hollingsworth of Salem, New England, at the April 5, 1664, session, and ob
             tained a judgment against him for twenty-five hundred pounds of tobacco and
             costs. Alleging error, Hollingsworth at the December 22, 1664, session asked
             the court to set aside the judgment. The case was then reheard at the March 2,
             1665, session, sitting as a court of chancery. The court divided two to two, and
             “being equal vote and the Chancellor as judge it is ordered that. .. . the whole
             cause [be] tryed by the next Assembly” (pages 184-185, 330-331, 295). As
             no record of the case coming before the Upper House is to be found it seems
             likely that it was settled out of court.
               Perhaps the most important suit involving land was the attempt made by
             Marmaduke Snow to wrest from his brother-in-law, Thomas Gerard, the owner
             ship of the latter's valuable manor of St. Clement's. Gerard, who had married
             Snow's sister, had some twenty years earlier been closely associated in various
             trading and land ventures with Abel Snow, of Snow Hill Manor, St. Mary's
             County, the brother of Marmaduke. It is said that after the death of Abel
             Snow, Gerard on behalf of his wife had laid claim to Abel's lands, and that
             Marmaduke had come over to Maryland to assert his rights in them, and that
             there was bad blood between them. About 166i Marmaduke Snow had brought
             suit in the Provincial Court against Gerard for old debts due his brother Abel,
             which he had acquired by assignments (Arch. Md. XLI, 530-534, 542-550, etc.).
             Matters came to a head when Snow at the October 6, 1664, session of the court
             obtained a judgment against Gerard for one thousand pounds sterling. Exe
             cution upon Gerard's personal property only yielded about three hundred pounds,
             so the court at its March I, 1665, meeting ordered the sheriff to have his lands
             appraised and sold, unless Gerard paid the balance of the judgment against him.
             Gerard by a writ of error took the case before the General Assembly through
             his attorneys Thomas Notley and John Morecroft (pages 269, 401, 415-416,
             555-558). The case was heard on appeal by the Upper House, at the April-May,
             1666, session, the order of the Provincial Court to execute upon the lands of
             Gerard was reversed, and Snow was ordered to yield possession of St. Clement's
             Manor to Gerard (Arch. Md. II; 11-12, 59-60).
               The use as early as 1642 of the Broad Arrow by the sheriff to mark tobacco
             seized by him for fines, or fees due to the Lord Proprietary and to various public
             officials, is of considerable interest, as it is the reflection in Maryland of the
             employment in England of the same picturesque symbol to denote the ownership
             of certain crown property. Although the origin of the use of the Broad Arrow
             for this purpose in England, and the date when it was first used, have been
             matters of no little discussion and speculation, conjectures as to its origin cannot
             be entered into here. In September, 1642, the General Assembly of Maryland
             passed an act directing the sheriff in executing for debt upon tobacco or corn,
             to weigh the tobacco in casks and to measure the husked corn, and then to mark
             what he had so seized with a Broad Arrow, and a special mark to show for
             whom it had been taken, all debts, taxes, fines or fees due to the Lord Proprietary
             or to public officials, to have precedence over private debts. The operation of