The First Century of the Court of Chancery.      liii

     and the Complaint of diverse persons Recd Ordered that the Court of Chancery
     do for the future sit every two months, that speedy Justice may be done and
     the Causes there brought not so Delay'd and prolong'd” (Arch. Md. xx, 583).
      The Council proceedings show the result of an interesting consultation that
     Governor Nicholson held on October 9, 1695, with a group of lawyers in regard
     to the appellate jurisdiction of a Court of Delegates which it was proposed to
     call to hear an appeal from an order of the Commissary General or Chief Judge
     of Probate. The general question of recording the opinion of any dissenting
     judge in the several courts came up for consideration and resulted in an order
     by the Governor and Council, acting upon the unanimous advice of the lawyers
     connected with the courts, that “ if in case any Judge Enters his Dissent to the
     Judgmt of the rest of the Judges sitting in Judgmt with him, whether such
     Judge dissenting shall not thereupon give or shew some Reason for such his
     Dissent, & whether the same should be Entred in the Record or not, who are
     Unanimously of Opinion that any Judge may Enter his Dissent without shew-
     ing any Reason, and that such Dissent ought to be Enter'd in the Clerks Minute
     Book fair writ out, but not in the Record, And thereupon Ordered that the same
     Rule be observed in all & singular the Courts of Justice within this Province “.
     The clerks of the several courts were ordered hereafter to keep such minutes.
     The opinions of the Maryland lawyers participating in this conference in regard
     to the functions of a Court of Delegates are recorded in full and include the
     names of” Mr Attorney & Solicitor Genll" “, Kenelm Cheseldyn, Charles Carroll,
     Philip Clarke, Robert Goldsborough, Robert Carvile, and Samuel Watkins
     (Arch. Md., xx, 311-319). At this date George Plater was Attorney-General
     and William Dent Solicitor General (Arch. Md., xx, i8i, 237, 287, 380, 385).
     Their opinions are also filed, but not under their official titles. It is to be noted
     that the proceedings of a Court of Delegates held in 1678 are to be found among
     the records of the Court of Chancery in this volume (see pp. 508-520).
      The list of associate justices of the Provincial Court sitting at the session of
     December 14, 1696, shows no names that occur on the Court of Chancery at
     this time (Arch. Md., xx, 575). We have already seen that the members of
     the Court of Chancery are spoken of variously as judges, justices and com-
     missioners. From 1701 to 1719 the term assistant is frequently used for
     associate justices. It is to be noted that Kenelm Cheseldyn, a member of the
     court, also refers to himself in a deposition made, December 12, 1696, as having
     been for some time “one of the Masters in Chancery “, showing that the term
     master was at one time synonymous with associate justice (Arch. Md., xx, 576).
     The Council records from 1696/7 to September 1698, are missing, but at the
     Council meeting of January 2, 1698/9, oaths were administered to Nathaniel
     Blakiston, the new Governor, and to various other officials, including “Mr.
     Samuel Young, one of the masters in Chancery” (Arch. Md., xxv, 52). At
     the three next meetings of the Court of Chancery, Young appears as one of
     the two associate justices, showing that the title master was here used in a
     different sense than it was later employed, for a few years after the Chancery
     became a one-man court in 1720, we find the term master applied as in England
     to officers of the Court who acted as examiners or auditors for the Chancellor