LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL








       To the Maryland Historical Society:

          GENTLEMEN AND LADIES:

         This volume of the proceedings of the Provincial Court of Maryland, 1670-
       1675, is Volume LXV of the Archives of Maryland and number 10 of the
       sub-series on the courts. The sixth volume of the Provincial Court records,
       it begins in February 17, 1670/1 where Volume LVII ended, and continues
       to November 16, 1675. The text printed here reproduces the manuscript as
       exactly as the resources of a modern press permit, for the Publications Corn
       mittee still believe what the first editor, Dr. William Hand Browne said in the
       preface to Volume I: “The moment an editor allows himself to make any
       correction, however slight or obvious, the integrity of the text is gone, and in
       its stead is given a version”, of uncertain accuracy (Archives of Maryland,
       Vol. I, p. lv.). It was set directly from photostats of the original Lihers JJ and
       MM, now in the Land Office in Annapolis. A concession or two had to be made.
       The table printcd here on page 538 in one column was written by the clerk in
       two columns, like a page from a double-entry ledger. But he could compress
       his handwriting and get them side by side. This the press could not do
       type is not made of rubber.
         The handwriting of the late seventeenth century was not that of the twentieth.
       At its best it is not easy for the twentieth century to read, and often these scribes
       did not do their best. Sometimes they seem to have known or cared little
       about the record they were keeping. A straight line over a letter is supposed
       to denote the omission of in or n after it: many times here the sign is u5cd
       where the omitted letter belongs before the marked letter. In any case the
       contractions present a problem for the typesetter. There are, for instance, six
       different combinations u5cd with the letter p, and each of them must have
       been cut separately every time it appears. It is true that a p with a stroke over
       it could have been set easily, but such a combination means only pm or pn, a
       combination for which we have had little or no use. Especially valuable would
       have been a character for p with a straight stroke through the stem, or a p
       with a stroke curved around the stern. The first of these means per, par or por,
       the latter means pro, and the two of them appear on every page. Accordingly,
       since it was substantially impossible to reproduce all the contraction marks, it
       was decided to reproduce none of them. People interested in seventeenth
       century records, to whom this volume is especially attractive, might have been
       confused or annoyed by an inaccurate contraction: they can, without too much
       difficulty, read imparle for imple, or person for pson.