xxiv Introduction.

be tied in it, as this would be "very indecent and offensive to the Inhabitants
of the said town" (pp. 209-211). The petition of the inhabitants of Chester
Town for authority to hold a market, and for its regulation will be found
printed in the Appendix. It is endorsed April 21, 1761, the date when it was
referred by the Upper House to the Lower House (pp. 579-580).

The act [No. XXXIV~\ for destroying crows and squirrels in Baltimore
County is an example of the type of local law which duwu iu the present day
waste so much of the time of the General Assembly. The wording of the act
allowing two pounds of tobacco, about two pence, to be paid for the head or
scalp of each crow or squirrel destroyed, suggests that the legislature could
not forget in wording this bill, the bounty of twenty pounds paid for the scalp
of every enemy Indian (pp. 212.213). A local law [No. XXVI~] increasing the
pay of tobacco inspectors at the warehouses at Elk Ridge Landing, Anne
Arundel County, and at Emerson's in Talbot County (pp. 202.203), as well
as the act [No. XX~\ authorizing the erection of a tobacco warehouse at Vienna
Town, Dorchester County, may be of interest to students of eighteenth century
tobacco culture in Maryland (pp. 191.193).

Five private acts were passed at the March-April, 1762, session. One of
these [No. XXI~] changed the name of Zacheas Barrett of Baltimore County to
Zacheas Onion, and was passed so as to allow Zacheas and his children to take
the surname Onion in order that he might, in compliance with the terms of the
will of his uncle, Stephen Onion, thereby inherit considerable real estate left him
conditionally under his uncle's will (p. 194). An act to remedy omissions in the
will of Henry Woodward, gentleman, of Anne Arundel County [No. XXIII~]
was passed at the prayer of Mary Woodward, the widow and executrix, to permit
her to sell a tract of one hundred and fifty acres, variously called Turkey Quarter,
Clark's, or Clark's Quarter, in Anne Arundel County, which her husband in-
tended to include among other lands which he had directed to be sold (pp. 195-
196). An act [No. XXVII~\ was passed to empower Mary Stansbury, widow
and administrator of Tobias Stansbury, late of Baltimore County, to sell lands
for the payment of his debts. The act shows that Stansbury had left five
daughters and an infant son, and that he was the owner of about five hundred
acres in Baltimore and Frederick counties. The widow was empowered to
dispose of by public vendue enough of these lands to pay her husband's debts.
A similar act [No. XXX~] empowered William Clajon and Mary, his wife,
to sell a lot in Annapolis, upon which stood three dwelling houses, for the
payment of the debts of Gamaliel Butler, deceased. The act recited that Mary,
the widow of Butler, had one son by him and that she had since married
William Clajon. She was given authority to dispose of the land and houses
in Annapolis by public vendue, any surplus over and above the amount required
to pay Butler's debts to be applied to the use of those persons to whom the
lot and houses under the will would have belonged.

An act of naturalization [XX/X] was passed to naturalize Colonel Henry
Bouquet and Frederick Victor, both of them referred to as "Foreigners of
the Protestant or Reformed Religion". Colonel Henry Bouquet (1717-1765),
described in the act as appointed by the King "an Officer of his Majesty's