lxxxiv Introduction.

is made of the records of the Governor and Council nor of the records of the
Chancery Court which were apparently considered as Proprietary papers and
therefore not subject to Assembly scrutiny. It was reported that in the Land
Office the original land certificates were in the greatest confusion, that many
had not been copied into the record books, and that the alphabets (indices) were
incomplete and defaced; the judgments of the Provincial Court since 1765
had in part not been recorded and were badly indexed. The recording of the
session laws escaped criticism. Severe criticism was directed at the various
testamentary records in the Commissary's Office. It was said that many of the
original wills and other papers had not been copied in the record books, and that
many omissions and mistakes had been found in the recording of several which
had been examined; that the alphabets were in poor condition. There was a
general criticism of all the public offices in that the records "for a Considerable
Time Past Appear to be made up Generally by Persons who write incorrect and
unsettled hands." With this report were filed lengthy lists of the libers in the
Secretary's Office and in the Commissary's Office. These lists are still of value
and interest to those who work among the old provincial records (p. 18, 33-46).
On the closing day of the May session, the Lower House sent an address to
the Governor, calling his attention to the condition of the public records and
requesting him to use his influence with the "Gentlemen who Enjoy such
Public Offices", to secure from them "a more exact Discharge of Duty" (p. 62).
At the 1768 session, a committee, again headed by Tyler, was appointed to
examine the public records and made another somewhat less detailed report.
This examination disclosed that the records in the Land Office from 1745 to
1768 were now in good condition and had been well transcribed in the record
books, but that before 1745 they were still in bad shape. In the Commissary's
Office recent records had been well cared for but before the year 1764 mistakes
in recording had not been corrected and many of these earlier records had not
been copied at all. The committee also reported that the records in the Assembly
Office, presumably the journals and the petitions, were also in the greatest con-
fusion (pp. 355-357)-

PUBLIC PRINTING AND THE GREENS

Jonas Green, the public printer, was at the May, 1766, session, by order of
the Lower House, summoned by the sergeant-at-arms to appear at the bar of
the house to be examined as to why he had omitted, contrary to the orders of
the house, to insert in the printed Votes and Proceedings of the last session
(that for November-December, 1765), the accounts of the clerks of the Upper
House sent with the message of the Upper House, dated December 9, 1765.
Green appeared before the bar of the house, and was examind on May 14,
1766, and ordered to print these accounts in the Votes and Proceedings of the
May, 1766, session. The house debated at length whether he should be ad-
monished or censured, for his failure to print these accounts. It at first voted
that he should be admonished by the Speaker, and an admonition was drawn
up, but it then voted that the matter be referred for further consideration. As
there is no later reference in the journal to the episode it seems certain that