xlii        The First Century of the Court of Chancery.

        yor Lopp sends me yor ordr. in that case, they shalbe fully observed, I only write
        this to yor. Lopp the more fully that people may not pay twice for doeing their
        busines but that the Chancelor ffee for Every writ in Chancery may be Duly
        setled, or else (that since wee sit here in a Double Capacity aswell Chancery as
        Provincial Cort and one Clerke serves for both busines, and wee try aswell
        Chancery as Provincial Cort busines at one sitting) the same scale (which is
        the lesser Seale of the Province) that seles the Provincial writs may also seale
        the Chancery writs, since one is as Cursory as the other, and that only Patents
        Pardons or Speciall busines touching publique affayres may passe undr the
        greate Seale, but for this I humbly Reserve it to yor Lopps Directions by
        the next.”
         Elsewhere in this same letter to his father, Charles goes with great detail into
        the close and complicated relation between the office of Chancellor and that of
        Principal Secretary, and throws much light upon the “ordinary” functions of
        the Chancellor as an administrative officer and Keeper of the Great Seal, of
        which we have no full explanation elsewhere. He writes that he feels sure that
        one of his father's secretaries (in England), and not his father, is responsible
        for certain confusing instructions he has received in regard to the issuing of
        land patents. He complains that the Chancellor refuses! to seal any patent until
        he has been paid his fee in money, evidently referring to a refusal to accept
        tobacco, and that his “standing so rigorously upon his pay in money for the
        scale of Patents before he would scale them” is unjustified, because “ when one
        pson is able to procure money here there is hundreds that can procure none “,
        that this has hindered “many hundreds of people from taking up land “, and
        “that severall people at last came amongst themselves to question his ffees and
        alledge it was never consented to in the Assembly as other ffees have beene”
        (ibid, pp. 29 1-292). How this was finally settled does not appear.
         The differences between the Court of Chancery in England and that in Mary-
        land in its judicial capacity, as it had crystallized thirty years after the settlement,
        are well brought out in the record of the case of Snowe vs. Gerard, heard on
        appeal before the Upper House of Assembly, September 15, 1664. A suit had
        been brought by Marmaduke Snowe against Thomas Gerrard of St. Clement's
        Manor in the Court of Chancery upon a recognizance entered into by Gerard
        for £1,000, and the cause had been dismissed in Chancery February 21, 1662/3,
        without a hearing. Snowe in his appeal assigns three errors, but only the first
        two of the errors assigned throw light upon the status of the Maryland court
        and need be discussed here. As to the first error assigned, it is declared by the
        plaintiff “that a Recognizance in Chancery is a record of the highest and most
        honoble Court of this Province agt which nothing but a discharge upon Record
        of the same Court can be admitted “. As to the second error assigned, it is
        claimed by the plaintiff that: “In the Court of Chancery the Chancellor being
        the Cheife & only Judge according to the lawe & Custome of England the plts
        bill was notwthstanding dismist Contrary to the opinion of the Chancellor “.
        The defendant Gerard's answer declares that as there never was a recognizance
        relating to Snowe given in any Court of Chancery in this Province, the first
        error is “humbly supposed to be ushered in, Rather to amuse this Assembly “.