Introduction. li

pendents and paupers in private families, their board being paid at county
expense. The new law, which was made to apply to five of the fourteen coun-
ties, viz., Anne Arundel, Prince George's, Worcester, Frederick, and Charles,
provided for the appointment of "trustees of the poor" in each of these five
counties, and for the erection of almshouses for the poor, and workhouses for
vagrants, beggars, vagabonds, and like offenders (pp. 486-495). This law is
discussed more fully later in a section devoted to it (pp. xcv-xcvi).

The act "for the relief of certain languishing prisoners in the several jails",
affording relief to 108 debtors, was of the same character as similar acts passed
at preceding sessions, but afforded relief to a much larger number than had
any previous law (pp. lxxvi-lxxviii, 468-473).

Two acts for the "preservation of the breed of fish'' were passed. One pro-
hibited the erection of fish weirs and regulated fishing with seines in the Sus-
quehanna and Patuxent rivers (pp. 425-427). The other designed "to prevent
any obstruction to navigation in the River Potomack" between Wills Creek
(Cumberland) and the Great Falls (Georgetown) (pp. 427-428), although
not so designated in the title was also a fish preservation measure. They have
already been referred to in a previous volume of the Archives (LIX, xxxiii-
xxxiv), and are discussed further in the Introduction of this volume under
"Fish Conservation" (pp. xcix-c).

An act "for granting to the Nanticoke Indians a compensation for lands
therein mentioned" is the concluding chapter of the story of the relations be-
tween this once prominent tribe and the Province, a tribe which had in the pre-
ceding two decades migrated almost in its entirety to the Province of New York
to join their brothers of the Six Nations. Lands for their use had been set aside
in 1704 and subsequently, on the Nanticoke River in Dorchester County, and on
Broad Creek in Somerset County, with the proviso that these would revert to
their former owners should they be abandoned by the Nanticokes. Under the
act of 1768, in consideration of the payment to them of 666| dollars, the New
York Nanticokes and the few remaining in Maryland released all right to their
lands in Maryland (pp. 429-431). The story of these Maryland Indian reser-
vations, the migration of the Nanticokes to New York, and the negotiations
for their sale of their lands is rather an interesting one, and is told in greater
detail in the section on this subject (pp. lxxviii-bcxxi).

The act for the "publication of the laws of this Province, and for the
encouragement of Anne Catharine Green", the printer, was identical in nearly
every respect with the usual law of this character passed at successive sessions,
providing for the printing of the session laws and the "Votes and Proceedings"
of the Lower House, except that the name of the printer was no longer Jonas
Green, but his widow Anne Catharine Green, who had taken over the printing
business at the time of her husband's death in 1767 (pp. 455-458). Jonas
Green's somewhat troubled relations with the Lower House during the 1766-
1767 period are related in the section on Public Printing and the Greens
(pp. lxxxiv-lxxxv).

The two remaining laws of a general character which were passed related to
legal procedure. One of these, for "the recovery of certain amercements and