Introduction.             xix

         Isaac Winchester, aiso of Kent County, ejected him, cut down his timber and
         did other damage to him. Winchester put John Currer on the premises, and
         Currer was admitted defendant in place of Winchester. He was ordered to
         confess lease, entry and ejectment and insist only on title. If he failed to do so,
         judgment should be entered against Winchester, the casual ejector. Each side
         was to pay the costs adjudged against the other. Marsh, the owner, declared
         he had given Currer, the tenant in possession, the proper copy of the proceed-
         ings, and, since Currer had not pleaded, Marsh prayed judgment against him.
         The Court decreed that Marsh should be restored to possession, and that he
         should have from Currer 864 pounds of tobacco for his costs. Because Marsh
         was sheriff of Kent, the writ to restore his tenant, Miller, to possession was
         directed to the coroner. On April 17, 1677, more than two years after Marsh
         began his action, the coroner returned that he had put Miller in possession of
         the land, but that he had found no goods or chattels of John Currer's from
         which he could make the 864 pounds of tobacco costs (post, pp. 372, 402).
           Sometimes there was dirty work in connection with land grants. Elizabeth
         Brispo, widow of Anthony, petitioned the Court to restore to her a parcel of
         land that had belonged to her husband. “Crab Hill”, Baltimore County, was
         patented in 1665 to John Lee. In 1667/8, Lee and William Osborne deeded
         it to Oliver Spry, and he in turn sold it to Richard Morgan and John Hail in
         1670. In early 1673/4, Morgan, who had bought out Hall, sold it to Brispo.
         After Brispo's death, his nearest neighbor, James Philipps took out a warrant
         of resurvey and “tells the petitionr the said land is his & will turne off . . . and
         Send his servants to work upon the said land which torments the petitioner
         very much”. Philipps's only basis was a mistake of the surveyor who had laid
         out the lands and who took as Philipps's boundary a tree that was really
         Brispo's boundary. Elizabeth produced a deposition from William Osborne
         that “Crabb Hill” was the land he and John Lee had sold to Spry. The Court
         directed the sheriff to summon a jury of the neighborhood to enquire into
         the bounds of the land and report back, but it does not appear here what the
         result was (post, p. 474-475).
           Mrs. Sarah (Cole) Claw Younger petitioned for relief against husband
         Alexander Younger and his attorney, Charles Boteler, and the Court granted
         her prayer. On July 10, 1673 there had been surveyed for Bryan Daley 500
         acres of land, called “Daley's Desire”, on the north side of Sassafras River,
         by a little cove. On July 20, 1674, Daley had assigned it to William Claw
         of St. Mary's County, and Claw left it at his death to his wife, born Sarah
         Cole. When Mrs. Claw married Alexander Younger, she took “Daley's Desire”
         with her into the marriage, and Younger wanted the land in his own right in-
         stead of his wife's. He “did sell & convey the same to Mr. Charles Boteler &
         did partly through menaces & partly through faire perswasions gett the peti-
         tioner to joyne with him in the sale thereof, for a valuable consideration pre-
         tended to be paid & received whereas in truth there was not any consideration
         paid for the sale thereof & only intended to defraud the petitioner of her inter-
         est in & to the same, & shortly after the said Charles Boteler made a deed of
         Conveyance thereof unto the said Younger whereby he is in his owne right