xxviii        Letter of Transmittal.






            accordingly entered against Stanley to recover the debts due by his predecessor
            Sadler. The suit was dismissed when it was shown that Sadler's estate was
            without funds (pages 87-90, 148).
              It is exceedingly difficult to identify from the unsatisfactory descriptions
            contained in the early records, the character of the different epidemics which
            are recorded as raging at various times in the Province. We find the court
            under date of November 28, 1663, issuing a proclamation postponing the
            reconvening of court from December 8, 1663, to February 9, 1664, on account
            of the “ distemper” now reigning in the country (page 94) . It is impossible to
            determine the nature of this epidemic, but there can be little question that one of
            its victims was William Bretton, clerk of the Provincial Court, for from Novem
            ber 28, 1663, to January 9, 1664, the penmanship shows that a substitute acted
            as clerk. This was apparently Daniel Jenifer, who later became the regular
            clerk. We find Jenifer at intervals signing his name, framed with an elaborate
            spiral decoration in which appears the date March 27, 1664. It seems probable
            that this was the date of his appointment to office, although the first of his
            clerical entries bears the marginal date of March 14, 1664 (pages 184-171).
              The Provincial Court records show several licenses issued to innkeepers, but
            whether county courts had similar powers at this date, is not clear. In 1665 we
            find licenses issued to Jonathan Hopkinson of South River, to our old acquain
            tance John Lumbrozo of Nanjemy Creek in Charles County, and to Richard
            Deaver of Choptank (pages 440, 455, 528). It will be recalled that when
            Hannah Lee, later Hannah Price, sold her house at St. Mary's to the Province
            for use as a State House, one of the conditions of the sale was that she should
            keep tavern there.
              A case which was tried at the October, 1665, court involved the question as
            to what was a legal tender. John Six, a Calvert County tailor, was sued for
            debt by Richard Smyth in the Calvert County Court; judgment was obtained
            against him, and he was imprisoned for debt. Six then sued Smyth in the
            Provincial Court at the October 16, 1666, session, claiming that he had set
            aside for Smyth sufficient tobacco to pay a substantial part of the debt, but that
            Smyth had refused to take it when notified. The court divided; the majority
            decided that this offer of partial payment was not a legal tender, the Governor
            and Chancellor dissenting. Six was thereby denied relief and remained in jail
            (pages 460, 463, 507-508).
              In a writ issued August 8, 1664, against a person whose name was doubt
            less Edward Ward, for a debt in the amount of 6oo pounds of tobacco, the
            clerk, in what would seem to be a spirit of humor, thus records the debtor's
            name: “Edward Ward Edward Ward Edward Ward Edward Ward Wardus,”
            and the name is thus repeated three times in the record (page 255).
              Under date of October 27, 1664, Mrs. Margaret Perry of London brings
            suit in the Provincial Court by her attorney John Gittings against her daughter
            Mary Bateman, as the executrix of the estate of the latter's husband John
            Bateman, lately one of the Governor's councillors. Mrs. Perry declares that
            John Bateman, late citizen and haberdasher of London, obligated himself to set
            aside two thousand pounds sterling from his estate to cover a pre-nuptial bond