xliv                 Introduction.

       coroner for holding inquests upon those dead by misadventure, room rent in
       houses or inns where court was held, bridge construction, board and care in
       private homes of the poor, the sick, and the infirm, and the care of orphan
       infants, bounties for wolves' heads, the custody of the standards of weights and
       measures, powder and shot for public defense, moving the stocks and pillory,
       the cost of building the court house and prison, and various other items. The
       levies for the years 1666, 1669, 1671, 1672, and 1674, are to be found recorded
       (pp. 40, 229, 347-348, 431, 586-587) ; the failure to enter the levies for 1667,
       1668, and 1673, was doubtless due to unsettled conditions in the clerk's office
       during these years. The figures for the number of taxables for the five years
       entered are: 1666—548; 1669—668; 1671—736; 1672—722; 1674—783. A
       rough estimate of the total population of Charles County in 1665, based on the
       increases in the number of taxables, is 1500; the population in 1674 appears to
       have increased to about 2100. It may be added that there were as yet very
       few negroes in the Province. There is only one mention of a negro slave in this
       nine year record (p. 134).
         Some of the more important items to be found in the levies may be sum-
       marized. The levy for 1671 shows that Edmund Lindsay (Lendsey), the
       Portobacco innkeeper and planter, was paid 1000 pounds of tobacco “for the
       trouble of his house for keeping the court” (pp. 347-348); and the following
       year Benjamin Rozer, the sheriff, received 450 pounds “while court was kept
       at his house” (p. 431). Where the court was held in other years is not dis-
       closed. After 1674 the court sessions were doubtless held in the new court
       house. In the year 1671, Ignatius Causine, the coroner, received 750 pounds
       of tobacco as his fee for holding “three inquests upon the death of Servants”
       (pp. 347-348). The 1672 levy shows that 10,000 pounds of tobacco was pro-
       vided to build a court house (p. 341), but this was not then carried out as a
       later record tells us that a court house was provided for under a different
       appropriation. The 1674 levy provided 20,000 pounds of tobacco “for a Ct.
       House & Prison” (pp. 586-587). The levy for 1669 shows that William Boar-
       man received 3000 pounds of tobacco for making a bridge, and the 1674 levy
       discloses another payment to him for a bridge, this time 7500 pounds of tobacco
       (pp. 229, 586, 587). All the levies show payments of bounties for wolves'
       heads. Down to the year 1671, this bounty was 100 pounds of tobacco for each
       head, but in October, 1671, the General Assembly increased the bounty to 200
       pounds. The number of bounties paid varied year by year from a minimum
       of ten to a maximum of twenty-seven.
         Under the act of 1671, Henry Adams had been appointed Keeper of the
       Standards of Weights and Measures for Charles County, and 1600 pounds of
       tobacco had been allowed him for their purchase (Arch. Md. II; 279-281);
       the levy for 1671 shows the payment to him of this amount (p. 347), and the
       levy for 1672 of 400 pounds additional to complete the purchase (p. 431). It
       may be noted that, as in more recent times, the assessment upon each taxable
       for the nine year period covered by this record, shows a rapid year by year
       increase. In 1666, it was 21 pounds of tobacco for each taxable; in 1674, it
       had reached 105 pounds for each, the large increase in the latter year being
       in great part due to the cost of the new court house and the bridge.