x                 Letter of Transmittal.

         During the period covered by this volume Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, was the
        Lord Proprietary, and his son Charles, who later succeeded to the title, repre-
        sented his father in Maryland as Lieutenant Governor. Political affairs at this
        time were quiescent in both England and Maryland. Indian disturbances in
        the Province were infrequent and not serious, although in 1666 there had been
        a slight outbreak at Piscataway. The population of the Province was increasing
        rapidly, due in considerable part to the influx of settlers from England and
        Virginia. It was in 1673 that Augustine Herrman, after exhaustive surveys,
        published his notable engraved map of Maryland and Virginia, receiving from
        Cecelius Calvert as a reward the grant of Bohemia Manor and other lands in
        Cecil County at the head of the Chesapeake, a princely estate of some twenty
        thousand acres. Trade showed marked improvement. Planters were building
        better houses. The Province of Maryland was getting into its stride.
          In the preceding volume of the Proceedings of the Charles County Court
        (LIII), will be found a detailed account of its establishment in 1658, the same
        year the county was erected, and of its activities down to the year 1666, when
        the present volume continues the record. In the Introduction to the first volume
        of Charles County records will also be found a sketch of the organization, de-
        velopment, jurisdiction, and procedure of the Maryland county court system
        in general in the seventeenth century.
          The Charles County Court which met either at, or near, the town of Porto-
        bacco, was composed of the prominent planters of the community, and exercised
        both judicial and administrative functions. There was in the 1666-1674 period
        an increase in the number of the justices on the bench from seven to eleven. All
        the justices were appointed by the Governor, through whom the Lord Proprie-
        tary thus exercised indirect but complete control. Power was centered in the three
        or four justices who headed the list, who were designated as “of the quorum”;
        and unless one or more of these, or a member of the Governor's Council, was
        present, the court could not lawfully function. The religious affiliation of the
        justices at this period is of some interest. Three of the quorum were, as was
        the Lord Proprietary, Roman Catholics. All the remaining justices, with one
        exception, seem to have been Protestants. The presiding justice during this
        entire nine year period, except for the one year when he was sheriff and there-
        fore could not sit on the bench, was Henry Adams, who was also a Catholic.
        in only a single instance is the dissent of a justice to the judgment of the court
        recorded. This was when William Marshall refused to concur with the rest
        of the court in their refusal to grant an appeal to the Provincial Court. The
        great majority of the civil suits were tried before the court, although trial
        by a jury was granted in a number of instances. There were very few appeals
        to the Provincial Court asked, and none of those granted seem to have actually