lii                  Introduction.

        Daniel Jenifer, for harboring a runaway servant Catherine How. The defen-
        dant asked a jury trial, doubtless because of the justices' rather biased attitude
        in such cases in favor of the master, but the verdict in this case was against
        the defendant “for three dayes entertaineing” the servant contrary to the act
        of the Assembly, but whether three days, or more, was claimed by the plaintiff
        is not revealed by the record (pp. 243, 303, 306). One's sympathy is generally
        with those who harbored, or “entertained”, a runaway servant, as this was
        usually done from kindness of heart and and the knowledge that runaways
        generally came from the homes of harsh masters. When Edmund Lindsey
        sued Thomas Sprigg, one of the justices of Calvert County, for unlawfully
        harboring, or “entertaining”, the former's servant, Robert Leeds, both parties
        to the suit agreed to refer the matter to Mr. Thomas Notley and Dr. John
        Peerce for arbitration, with the understanding that if they found against
        Sprague he would pass his note for 5000 pounds of tobacco to Lindsey (p.
        374). The decision of the arbitrators is not reported.
         The case of John Corbett, a servant suffering from an old leg ulcer, has
        interesting features. Corbett was bound over by the court to serve Dr. John
        Stansby for two years, conditional upon a successful cure. The story has been
        told in the section dealing with medical matters (pp. xlvii-xlviii, 182, 368-9).
        Augustine Herman, lord of Bohemia Manor and Maryland's first cartog-
        rapher, was complained against by Francis Hill at the December, 1670, court,
        in that Hill's runaway servant George Taylor had been apprehended at Her-
        man's, who had refused to deliver him over unless the owner passed a bill for
        1400 pounds of tobacco, which the complainant declared was a great exaction
        and contrary to law. The court ordered the payment of 400 pounds of tobacco
        and no more to Herman, and the delivery of the servant to Hill (pp. 581).
        At the December, 1670, court John Griffith, an indentured servant, who declared
        that he had served his full term, complained that his master Thomas Paine,
        by a false receipt which “youre poore Ignorant Petitioner putt his hand unto”,
        detained the corn and clothes by custom due him. The court ordered Paine to
        pay Griffith the “Come & Clothes & other things according to the Custome of
        the Country”, and an execution against Paine was issued (p. 579).
         An instance of a freeman being sentenced to serve a sheriff for a year to
        thus work out fees due by him to the sheriff, was perhaps regarded as prefer-
        able to imprisonment by that officer until the debt was paid. Be this as it may,
        at the December, 1670, court it was ordered that Charles Vincent “in discharge
        and accquittall from payinge of the said Fees” justly due to Randall Revell (the
        then Sheriff of Somerset County), shall serve Revell for one full year (p. 254).
        On another occasion the Court held that a Sheriff could not execute against
        a man, who had been his former prisoner, for imprisonment costs incurred
        several years before, and declared that the sheriff should have held his prisoner
        until these costs were paid (p. 117). Joseph Thompson was indicted for
        hog stealing in a case in which another servant and his master Peter Bawcomb
        were also involved. Thompson whose indictment was quashed, was sold by the
        sheriff of Dorchester County to another master for three years to pay his
        imprisonment costs (p. 601-603). After having served the new master for