xxii Introduction.

ence to the other chamber. These petitions had obviously become so numerous
and so troublesome to the delegates in the Lower House, who often had to
appoint special committees to enquire into the merits of the matters presented
in them, that at the 1762 session, the house on November 2, "Resolved that
on all Bills drawn on Petition to be presented to this House containing Matters
of Fact Necessary to be Proved in Order to obtain the End prayed for by the
said Petition, the Proof Necessary to Make the said Facts appear Shall be
ready to be produced to this House on the Second reading of the Bill drawn
for that Purpose" (p. 243). And again at this session the Lower House
resolved that petitions to the Assembly involving the imposition of local county
or parochial taxes must be advertised at least two months previously at local
court houses, churches, and chapels of ease, otherwise they would not be con-
sidered (pp. 389). Unfortunately very few of the original petitions have been
preserved and are now to be found among the provincial archives, as they
would unquestionably throw interesting light upon many matters now obscure.
That of Jonas Green, the public printer, in the form of a printed broad-
side described elsewhere in this introduction (p. ixxiii), is an exception,
and is to be found among the Calvert Papers. For some reason, however, the
original petitions of insolvent debtors "languishing" in prison, who craved
legislative relief, are also exceptions to the rule and have often escaped destruc-
tion. Some of these for this period will be found reproduced in the Ap-
pendix (pp. 583.589).

At the 1762 and 1763 sessions sixty-eight laws in all were enacted, thirty-
four at each session, in marked contrast with the session or "convention" of
the Assembly held in April-May, 1761, when owing to the disagreements
between the two houses no laws at all were passed.

Little legislation of much importance, however, was enacted at the 1762
session. Among the laws passed were twenty-nine of a public character and
five private acts. Of the twenty-nine public laws, sixteen, or more than half,
were continuances of acts about to expire by limitation of time, which were
now extended by legislative action. Fifteen of these continuances were for
three years more, while one, an unimportant local law for the destruction of
wolves in Frederick County, was for a six year period. Most of these were
old laws which had been previously continued by successive legislative acts,
so do not require mention here. Of the thirteen new acts of a public character,
only four applied to the Province as a whole, the remaining nine being local
or parochial laws. Of the four general public laws, one for the encouragement
of Jonas Green, the public printer [No. XXIV], is discussed at length else-
where in this introduction (pp. ixxii-lxxv). The act to prohibit loans by the
Paper Currency or Loan Office [No. XXXIV] was doubtless passed to correct
the lax methods of the Commissioners of the Loan Office, uncovered by an
Assembly committee and commented upon in another section (pp. ix-lxiv).
The law for the continuance of causes then standing for trial in the Provincial
Court [No. XXXI~\ merely authorized the postponement of court hearings to
a date later than the close of the April, 1762, court term, and thus kept the
cases alive until the September court. The act [No. XV~\ to permit the executor