Introduction. xxxv

Weights and measures. The maintenance of the correct standards of weights
and measures was a matter of great importance to the public. It may be re-
called that at the October-November, 1763, session a bill was introduced to
strengthen the act relating to the standard of English weights and measures,
and that this bill failed of passage because the Upper House had amended the
bill as it had been passed by the lower chamber, by giving to the Lord Pro-
prietary one third of any fines collected for its violation, fines which under the
Lower House bill were to be equally divided between the public and the
informer (Arch. Md. LVIII; xxxvii). When the bill was again passed by
the Lower House at the 1765 session the Upper House did not bring up its
former demand, and it became a law without further controversy between the
two houses, although under it the fines were to be equally divided between the
informer and the public, and to be applied as the Assembly might direct
(pp. 262-263).

Apprentices. Difficulties about apprentices were a constant cause of litiga-
tion and took up a great deal of the time of the county courts. A bill was
introduced in the Lower House under the title "an act to ease the Inhabitants
of this Province to bind out the persons therein mentioned apprentices". It
passed the Lower House but was rejected by the Upper House (pp. 171, 177,
184, 199, 73, 75, 204). The nature of the bill is not revealed by the journal
of either house, but an examination of the act with a similar title, passed at
the November-December, 1766, session, doubtless discloses the general pur-
port of the bill (Hanson's Laws of Maryland made since MDCCLXIII; 1787;
acts of 1766, chapter XV). The act of 1766 made provision for apprenticing
children whose fathers had left the Province, or had removed to other counties,
without providing for their support, but restricted the selection by the court
to masters or mistresses who were Protestants.

Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic question, although smouldering, did
not flare up at this session. It will be recalled that an attempt had been made at
the March-April, 1761, session, and again at the 1763 session, to rectify the
injustices suffered by alien or unnaturalized landholders, and purchasers of
land from them, in the matter of their land titles. But at both sessions,
because the Lower House would only assent to a bill which discriminated in
favor of Protestant landholders and penalized Roman Catholic landholders,
legislation at both of these sessions failed of passage. This question has
already been fully discussed by the editor in introductions to previous volumes
of the Archives (Arch. Md. LVI; Ixiii-lxvi; LVIII; Ixv-lxvi). At the
November-December, 1765, session, a bill involving this same Catholic ques-
tion, "an act for the Security of Purchasers and others claiming by and from
Aliens", was introduced in the Lower House, passed, and sent to the Upper
House (pp. 172, 184). There it was amended by deleting the words "Protes-
tant" and "Papist" wherever they occurred in the bill, obviously for the pur-
pose of removing from it all discrimination against Catholics. As no copy
of the bill is known to exist we cannot tell with certainty to what extent, or
in what way, it discriminated against Catholics, but there can be no question
that as drawn up in the Lower House it denied a good title in land to alien