Introduction.             xxi

         Michael Catterton, and they were in danger of having to serve five years “to
         their unspeakeable prejudice and damage”. Governor Calvert, to whom of
         course the petition was addressed, told them to appear for a hearing at the
         next Provincial Court, and this they did. The Court listened to them, and to
         their witnesses, and said they were free, “untill the said Michael Catterton make
         appeare to the Contrary.” (post, p. 50).
          Hall and Soly were working out their passage, but others had admittedly
         come into the Province as indentured servants. James Bill, alias Ellis, entered
         in the ship Crowne Malego Walter Dunch commander, on October 17, 1671.
         He was under a four-year indenture to Capt. Thomas Harwood, and the Cap-
         tain sold him, for the term given, to Robert Lockwood, of Anne Arundel
         County. Bill said he had faithfully served out his four years, nevertheless
         Lockwood refused to free him. When he produced in court the certificate from
         the office for enrolling the consent of servants and their agreements with their
         masters, the Court judged, on February 10, 1675/6, that he had served his
         full time of service (post, p. 5').
          Hugh Brulanghan and Rose 0 Daniel said they had come into the Province
         as servants to John Derry, bound by indentures for four years only. Derry
         assigned them to Edward Lappage, and Lappage sold them for the five years
         that constituted the custom of the country on servants' time. More than that,
         he refused to return to them their indentures, and without them they must have
         a hard time proving what they said. So they prayed the Court to take the depo-
         sition of John Derry, or Decry, who had brought them in. Derry deposed that
         they had been obliged to serve for four years from the time of their arrival,
         and that that four years had expired in March 1676. The Court took account
         of Derry's oath, and turned the people over to the Somerset County commis-
         sioners, though the petition had been presented originally to the Provincial
         Court (post, 203-204).

          Hall and Ellis and Brulanghan and Rose 0 Daniel were white, Thomas
         Hagleton was “a negroe.” He petitioned his Lordship that in England he had
         made an agreement with Margery Dutchess [name or title?], by which he was to
         serve Thomas Kemp for four years and no longer. The four years had ended
         a year ago, but Major Thomas Truman, into whose hands he had come, refused
         to set him free. Truman had been a justice of the Court, and had earlier had
         the unusual sensitiveness to refuse to sit in the consideration of a case in which
         he was a witness (Archives, LXV, 634). Now, however, he was more obdu-
         rate. The Court, having held a trial between him and Hagleton, with witnesses
         and with written evidence, judged that “the said Thomas Hagleton is free.”
         This was on May 24, 1676, but, six months later Hagleton came into court
         again, and asked that Truman be ordered to give him the clothes and the corn
         provided in such cases by the act of Assembly (post, 291, 351, 360; Archives,
         II, 525). The Court ordered Truman to comply with the law, but he seems to
         have passed the burden back to Thomas Kemp, party to Hagleton's entry
         agreement. In April 1677 Kemp took the pauper's oath that he was worth less
         than £5, his debts being paid “besides the thing in question about Thomas
         Hagleton a negro)” (post. p. 489). Counsel were assigned. him and he was