xliv           Early Maryland County Courts.

           Patrick Fleming and John Avery five times each, and numerous others less
           frequently. Those who appear most frequently as attorneys in Charles County,
           their names followed by numbers indicating how often each appeared, are the
           following: William Price, twenty-eight; Josias Fendall, seventeen; Thomas
           Lomax, sixteen; Abraham Rowse, twelve; George Thompson, eleven; Francis
           Batchelor, nine; Edmund Lendsey, nine; John Neville, nine; William Calvert,
           seven; Jacob Lumbrozo, four.
             It seems probable that in many of the cases in which the plaintiff appears
           as represented by an attorney we are really dealing with a subterfuge to evade
           the acts of 1640 and 1642, prohibiting the assignment of debts without the con
           sent of the debtor (Arch. Md. i, 157, 191; liv, 155), rather than with a bona
           fide appearance of the plaintiff by an attorney. While these acts forbade such
           assignments of debts by creditors, they could be evaded by the appointment as
           attorney of one who really thus became the assignee of the debt. It therefore
           seems certain that some of those who frequently appear as attorneys were really
           men who were buying up bills of debt at a discount, and thus in a small way
           acting as neighborhood bankers.
             It was during the period covered by these records that Quakers first appeared
           in Maryland to disturb the equilibrium of the authorities. In the year 1658
           we find a number of persons, all Quakers, brought before the Provincial Court
           for refusing to subscribe to the oath of fidelity to the Proprietary. In 1660
           there were considerable additions to the number of Quakers in certain counties,
           as a result of the repressive measures taken against them by Gov. Berkeley in
           Virginia that year. In the commission appointing the justices of Charles
           County, issued June 14, 1661, was included the name of Thomas Stone,
           son of the late Governor, William Stone (Arch. Md. iii, 424). He asked time
           to consider the propriety of taking the oath of office, and at the next court
           session refused the oath, and was fined 1000 pounds of tobacco (pp. 160, 195).
           He may have been a Quaker. In Kent nine men, some known to be, but all
           probably Quakers, refused to take the oath of fidelity to the recently re
           stored Proprietary, or even to subscribe to the “engagement” of fidelity; and
           about the same time, June I, 1661, William Elliott, the choice of his neigh
           bors for constable, refused to take the official oath for that office (Arch. Md. liv,
           220). In Somerset two prominent Quakers, George Johnson and James Jones,
           who were appointed justices, September 4, 1666, delayed taking the oath, and
           went to St. Mary's where just a week later they qualified before the Governor,
           having in some way reconciled their consciences to taking the oath (Arch. Md.
           liv, 637, 642). At the March 1673 session of the Talbot County Court five
           prominent Quakers were fined 500 pounds of tobacco each for “refusing to
           serve on a grand jury “, doubtless meaning that they refused the oath (Arch.
           Md. liv, 599). In Kent a rule of court was adopted at the September, 1658,
           sessions, doubtless as the result of a recent offence, “That noe man prsume
           excepte a member of the Court to Stand wth his hat on his head in the prsence
           of the Court . . . or use any unscivill Language” (Arch. Md. liv, 139). At
           the next session held in October, Henry Carline, a Quaker, was fined 300
           pounds of tobacco for disobeying this order (Arch. Md. liv, 146). The phrase-