LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

                                 Baltimore, December 20, 1940.

    To the Maryland Historical Society

        GENTLEMEN:

      This volume, the Proceedings of the Provincial Court of Maryland 1666-
    1670, forms Volume LVII of the Archives of Maryland, and the eighth volume
    of the sub-series dealing with the seventeenth century Maryland courts. It is in
    direct continuation with Volume XLIX which carried down the proceedings of
    this court to the beginning of the year 1666, and is the fifth volume of Provincial
    Court proceedings so far published. Of the Court sub-series there have also
    appeared one volume of proceedings of the Court of Chancery (Volume LI),
    and two volumes of the proceedings of the county courts of Kent, Charles,
    Talbot and Somerset (Volumes LIII and LIV). In the introduction to cer-
    tain volumes of the Archives will be found traced the history of the develop-
    ment during the seventeenth century of the Provincial, Chancery, county, and
    manorial courts of Maryland (XLIX, LI, LIII, LIV).

      In the five-year period which this volume covers there was a marked change
    in legal procedure in the Provincial Court and in the Chancery Court; and
    beginning with the June, 1666, session, we find the establishment of a profes-
    sional bar. Prior to this litigants had been represented by any planter or official
    who might present himself in court on a client's behalf as his attorney, but
    practice in the provincial courts at St. Mary's was, beginning with this ses-
    sion, limited to those formally admitted by the court as sworn attorneys, and
    thereafter practice became concentrated in the hands of a limited number of
    men. It was also at this time that legal procedure in the provincial courts began
    to become more formalized, technical, and rigid. For this, one man, John More-
    croft, a well-trained professional lawyer, who had recently come into the
    Province from Virginia and at once become the leader of the Maryland bar,
    seems to have been in great part responsible, as there were no changes in
    the personnel of the court itself which can explain it.

      The scope of the jurisdiction of the court and the changes in the character
    of its legal procedure, as well as the civil and administrative duties of the
    court are discussed in the introduction, where there will also be found men-
    tion of the justices themselves, and of the officers of the court—the attorneys-