liv Introduction.

lease the remainder of the school land for a period of twenty-one years, the
money from these leases to be applied for the benefit of the school (pp. 459-
460).

A local law was enacted "to prohibit raising of swine and geese in George
Town, Kent County, and in Snow Hill Town in Worcester County." This act
followed the form usual in such legislation, requiring that swine and geese
be kept within proper enclosures, and if found running at large it was lawful
for any person to shoot or otherwise destroy them (p. 441).

In the year 1762 a local law had been passed establishing a market house
in Chester Town and providing rules for its regulation. This act was passed
for a three-year period (Arch. Md. LVIII, 209, 211). Why it was not con-
tinued when it expired in 1765 is not known, but it had lapsed for three years
when, at the 1768 session, an act reviving and continuing it for another three-
year period was passed (p. 440).

Private laws. Seven private acts, a few of them of some general interest,
were passed at the 1768 session. One of these private acts was passed to
validate a pre-nuptial agreement between Mary Darnall and no less a person
than young Charles Carroll of Carrollton. No mention of her intended hus-
band's name, however, is to be found in the act itself (pp. 422-423). The
matter presents such peculiar features that it is discussed in a separate section,
the Charles Car roll-Mary Darnall Marriage Settlement (pp. xcvi-xcvii).

The act for the "relief of the Reverend John Macpherson" of Charles County,
is remarkable in that it was a measure to release from imprisonment for debt a
clergyman of the Established Church, the Rector of William and Mary Parish,
St. Mary's County, and to reinstate him in his parish, the Rector agreeing to
mortgage a large part of his future salary as rector for the payment of his
creditors (pp. 465, 468). This strange case is discussed in the section on
Languishing Prisoners for Debt (pp. lxxvi-lxxviii).

An act "confirming to Spedding Bromwell of Talbot County certain lots
of land" was passed to give a good title to Spedding Bromwell to two lots in
the town of Oxford, Talbot County, which he had purchased in 1763 from
Jacob Bromwell and paid for, but before conveyance was executed, Jacob was
unfortunately drowned, leaving an infant son as his heir at law. The act con-
firmed the title in these lots to Spedding Bromwell (p. 454).

An act with a long title, here abbreviated, for "turning a part of a street
called East Street in the City of Annapolis and for confirming the title of
Thomas Jenings, Esq.^r, gave authority to Jenings to change the route of East
Street which ran through Annapolis Lot No. 86, owned by him, so that the
street thereafter would run through Jenings's land where it bordered on lot
No. 85, late in the tenure of John Brice, Esq., deceased, the bed of the aban-
doned street to be vested in Jenings (p. 460). This change in East Street is
of some interest to students of Annapolis history as the celebrated Brice House
is located in this immediate neighborhood. Another act was passed with a very
lengthy title, which is also here abbreviated: "to empower Mary Philpott,
widow and administratrix of Brian Philpott, late of Baltimore Town, mer-
chant, deceased, to sell the real estate of her said husband for the payment of