xlviii               Introduction.

        and as he was no servant of Stansby, he therefore did not come under the act
        of the Assembly, and was adjudged to be free (pp. 182, 368-9). Sharpe was a
        prominent Quaker, the marriage certificate of whose daughter is elsewhere en-
        tered in these records (p. 502).
         The name of Dr. Richard Tilghman of the Hermitage, Talbot County, who
        appears variously as “doctor of physick” or “chirurgeon”, and was during
        part of this period High Sheriff of Talbot, occurs very frequently in the
        record especially is his official capacity. Tilghman's bill against the estate of
        Thomas Hynson, Senior, of Kent County for 4661 pounds of tobacco “for
        divers meanes and medicines administred to him and his family in his lifetyme”
        for which he sued Hynson's sons, Thomas and John, at the June, 1669, court,
        although a large fee for the time was not disputed, the administrators con-
        fessing judgment (pp. 458-459). Tilghman's numerous difficulties as sheriff
        and the charges brought against him are referred to in another section
        (pp. xxii, xxxiii-xxxiv).
         There is an interesting reference in these pages to the great plague of London
        which raged in Humphrey Warren, a Maryland planter of Charles
        County, who was in London at that time, brought an action at the February,
        1668-9, session of the Provincial Court to have set aside a deed and a bond
        for £1562 which Warren had given to William Barrett in London to secure
        the performance of certain agreements then entered into which Warren had
        since refused to carry out. The latter sought to evade the payment on the
        bond on the ground that Barrett “att the time of the making of said Obligacon
        in the Citty of London in the Kingdome of England in the time of the
        great pestilence or Visitacon in the said Citty did him the said Humphery
        Threaten to Cast into Prison and did likewise impose upon the said Humphery
        such and soe great threats of his life, and of maime of his members to be
        brought upon him, unless the said Humphery would make and Seale the afore-
        said Obligacon att London aforesaid in the time of the pestilence aforesaid,
        That hee the said Humphery for feare of the imprisonmt and those threats
        aforesaid, the aforesaid Obligacon to the said William did then and there
        make”. Warren evidently felt, and with good reason, that at that time incar-
        ceration in a London prison was equivalent to a sentence of death. But the
        Provincial Court took a different view of the matter and found that as Warren
        was at liberty and without any constraint when he signed the deed and bond,
        gave judgment for 125,000 pounds of tobacco in favor of Barrett, and a little
        later ordered the sheriff to seize for the payment of this debt Warren's stock,
        goods, and chattels, and the moiety of his plantation at Hatton's Point (pp. 421,
        456, 485-486).
         The casual mention in the Maryland records of this period of a number of
        men who were styled physicians or chirurgeons does not necessarily im-
        ply that many of them had had a real professional training. In addition
        to Morecroft, Tilghman, Champ, and Stansby already mentioned, we find
        mention of a number of others. In 1666 John Peerce was called “Chirur-
        geon of the good ship called the Adventure of Hull” England, and a few
        years later is mentioned as of Talbot County, and is styled either “Dr.” or