554 Appendix.

greatest Part of the Trade and mercantile Business of the Planters,
Farmers, and other Country People of the County is transacted
there, as a regular and certain Market, where our Provisions, and
every Thing we make, may at all Times find a ready Price, and to
which the major Part of the People of the County already resort
and trade, and others are daily more and more resorting from all
Parts of our County; not only to sell their Plantation-Produce, but
for the doing of most Sorts of Business; so that whoever might be
obliged to attend the Courts, would at the same Time be in the Way

of negotiating their common Concerns; their Attendance on the

Public Service would be rendered easy and light, and regularly and
chearfully given, and none of the said Inconveniences attending the
present County-Duty would be felt: And that although the Town
of Baltimore should be found not so central as Joppa, we humbly
apprehend it cannot be an essential Objection of Inconveniency,
especially as we have the Example and Experience of our neigh-
bouring Colonies and of most of the Countries in the World to
assure us of how little Weight such an Objection has always been
held, when opposed to even much less Advantages than are above
enumerated.

When these Considerations, may it please Your Excellency and
Honors, are weighed, we humbly hope, and we also pray Your
Excellency and Honors will be pleasead to pass a Law for Dis-
posing of the Ground and Materials of the present Court-House
and Prison of this County, and for the Purchasing Ground, and
Building a Court-House and Prison, for the said County, in the
Town of Baltimore aforesaid, for the Courts for the said County
to be held in the said Court-House, and that the same be made
staunch and convenient, and well constructed against the Danger
of Fire, as to Your Excellency and Honors shall seem meet.

For which Your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.