Introduction.
                                                            xv

           the court of his county, under penalty of 3000 pounds of tobacco, or be at
           the same time, clerk of the county and sheriff (Archives, II, p. 132). When
           the sheriff was party to a suit, the coroner took the action which the sheriff
           normally took (Archives, LXV, p. 43, 212, 216; post, 402-403). On Decem-
           ber 2, 1676, the Court, with one eye on the act of 1666 forbidding sheriffs to
           practice in the court of their own county, was of the opinion that sheriffs
           could be admitted attorneys before them, provided that the parties concerned
           were not resident in their counties, and, on that same day Sheriff Colonel
           “Vincent Lowe was admitted & Sworne One of the Attorneys of this Court.”
           (post, p. 338), But that active gentleman had already been practicing before
           the Court for a long time, and he did not practice thereafter.
            On May 26, 1676, “The buisness of the Assembly occasioning the members
           of the upper house to attend, the Court adjournes till the morrow eight of the
           Clock.” (post, p. 304). This imperative business was the impeachment of
           Charles James, sheriff of Cecil County, by the Lower House, and his subsequent
           removal by the Upper House. At ten o'clock on the morning of May 26, Chan-
           cellor Philip Calvert, Col. Jesse Wharton, Col. Sam Chew and Lieut-Col.
           Thomas Taylor, justices of the Provincial Court, sat as the Upper House and
           heard the impeachment. He had committed perjury against Abraham Wilde,
           one of the justices of Cecil, and had suborned three other men to perjury.
           He had forcibly taken from several men “one bagg of Writeings . . . to the
           Vallue of 100000 Tob” and had kept it. A hundred thousand pounds of tobacco
           was a lot of money. One of these men he had imprisoned falsely for fifteen
           days. He had uttered “false Scandalous Seditious mutinous and Rebellious
           words that he the said Charles James was now Lord Proprietary”. James
           was ordered to appear for his trial, and the Lower House appointed their
           managers in the case, Keneim Cheseldyn, by now attorney general, and Col.
           William Burges. After the trial, “This [Upper] House doe Judge it fitte that
           Charles James be disabled to beare anie publick office or Imployment and have
           therefore desired his Lop to Call in the Said James his Comission for Shif of
           Caecill Countie Which his Lopp hath accordingly done” (Archives, II, pp. 490,
           496, 499). With this, the Lower House “are very well Satisfied with the
           prceedings agt Charles James.”
            There were no criminal cases at this time, and no grand juries summoned,
           but many of the civil cases were tried by petit (or petty) juries. When the
           defendant put himself upon the Country and the plaintiff likewise, or when
           the defendant prayed that the matter be enquired into by the Country and the
           other party likewise, it would be commanded the Sheriff of St. Mary's County
           that he cause to come there “twelve &c.” The phrase for the calling of a jury
           was never written out in anything like fullness, but the result was the same.
           The quality of the talesmen was presumably not much higher than it had been,
           but there are now no known drunkards or jailbirds among them (Archives,
           LXV, p. xvi). Besides these trial juries, there were juries called to partition
           land. Two gentlemen, William Coursey and Philemon Lloyd, were ordered to
           take with them “twelve free & legall men” of the county, to go to all the lands
           and tenements involved, and to divide them into two equal parts. This they did,