The First Century of the Court of Chancery.

       Equity before a Court of Chancery from any Judgemt given or obteyned against
       him in the Provinciall Court or County Court aforesaid shall Exhibitt his Bill
       and proceed in such Court of Chancery before any appeale be Entred or prose-
       cuted before the Governr & Councill aforesaid and not afterwards, and that all
       such persons that shall conceive themselves aggrieved by any decree in the said
       Court of Chancery, wherein the Originall debt shall exceed the Sume of Ffty
       pounds sterling or Twenty Thousand pounds of Tobaccoe shall be att Liberty
       to Exhibit his Prayer to the Governr and Councill to review & Examine the
       Same, and that such Sentence Judgemt or Decree of the said Governr and
       Councill either in Law or Equity as aforesaid shall be finall in this Province,
       not but that any person or persons agrieved with such Sentence Judgement or
       Decree of the said Governr & Councill where the reall vallue in dispute shall
       exceed Three hundred pounds Sterling according to their Matys Royall Com-
       mission & Instruction to his Excncy Francis Nicholson Esqr their Matys Captain
       Generall and Governr in Cheif of this Province shall and may appealle to their
       Matys in their Privy Councill according as their MatYs by their said Commission
       and Instruccons have been pleased gratiously to appoint and direct” (Arch.
       Md., xxxviii, 8-9).
         But the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to review decrees in Chancery
       was so construed that there appears to have been only one case heard on appeal
       between 1694 and 1718, when an act in this latter year permitting appeals under
       less restricted conditions was passed, and three years later reenacted with
       some slight changes. The subject of appeals in colonial Maryland, and the
       history of its highest appellate court, is to be found fully presented by Judge
       Carroll T. Bond, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, in his two recent
       books, The Court of Appeals of Maryland, A History, 1928, and the Proceed-
       ings of the Maryland Court of Appeals—1698-1729, 1933.
         The Council, October 17, 1694, appointed the members of the reorganized
       Chancery Court, ordering “that Mr. Kenelm Cheseldyn & Majr Edwd Dorsey
       be added to the Honoble Coll Henry Jowles Keeper of the Great Seale for the
       hearing & determining all Matters in Chancery” (Arch. Md. xx, 137). It
       also fixed the time of holding the several courts and ordered that the Provincial
       Court be held three times a year on the last Tuesday of February, April, and
       September, and the Chancery Court on the Mondays following. The Council
       further ordered that Sir Thomas Lawrence, the Secretary “doe by Virtue of
       his Comission from their Sacred Majties find A Register in Chancery who
       shall keep a distinct Record for that particular Office “. Although Jowles was
       a member of the Council, neither Cheseldyn nor Dorsey was, so we have now
       for the first time a Court of Chancery whose personnel was not entirely identical
       with the Council or with the Provincial Court as now constituted (Arch. Md.
       xx, 137, 139). During Nicholson's administration (1694-1698) the Governor
       did not sit in the Court of Chancery where the Chancellor now presided, and
       the court was made smaller than it had heretofore been (Chanc. Proc. P. C.
       1694-1698). For some reason not clear, November 12, 1694, the Council re-
       commissioned Jowles Keeper of the Great Seal, and ordered the Attorney-
       General to prepare a new Chancery Commission for the judges previously
       appointed (Arch. Md., xx, 172, 174).