LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

                                          September 1, 1934

      To The Maryland Historical Society,

         GENTLEMEN:

        In this the fifty-first volume of the Archives of Maryland your Committee
      on Publications has the honor to present the Proceedings of the Court of
      Chancery of Maryland from 1669 to 1679 inclusive. This is to be considered
      the fifth volume of the sub-series dealing with the records of the early courts
      of the Province. Of this court sub-series four volumes of the Proceedings of
      the Provincial Court have already appeared.
        The seventeenth century courts of Maryland, to begin with the highest, were
      (i) the appellate court of the Governor and Council sitting as the Upper
      House down through the year 1694, and after this date sitting separately under
      the name of the Court of Appeals, (2) the Provincial Court or general law
      court of the Province, (3) the Court of Chancery for hearing equity cases, (4)
      the several county courts, and (5) the manorial or leet courts which functioned
      on the larger manors. A brief general sketch by the editor of the development
      of these courts will be found in the introduction to Volume L of the Archives
      of Maryland.
        Since the publication of the last Provincial Court Proceedings as Volume L
      of the Archives, there was published in 1933, as the first volume of American
      Legal Records of the American Historical Association, the Proceedings of the
      Maryland Court of Appeals, 1695-1729, edited by Judge Carroll T. Bond,
      Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals. This is a study of the records
      of the Court of Appeals for the thirty-five years after the Governor and Council
      began to meet separately in 1695 to hear cases on appeal and to keep separate
      records. The cases heard on appeal by the Governor and Council before 1695
      are to be found scattered among the records of the Upper House, and have
      already been printed in the several volumes of the Archives of Maryland known
      as the Assembly Proceedings. As a rule the records of these cases heard on
      appeal before the Governor and Council sitting as the Upper House are reported
      more briefly than are the cases recorded after 1694 in the Proceedings of the
      Court of Appeals.
        The publication of Judge Bond's book has focused the attention of students
      of early American law and history upon the judicial system of Maryland. It