xii                  Introduction.

           10, 1678/9. Henry Coursey, first of Kent County, then later of Talbot County,
           who had reappeared in court November 28, 1676 after an absence of five or
           six years, is not present in court now, except, to be sure, as a litigant. He
           continued to be a member of the Provincial Council, and to devote much time
           to Indian relations. He lived until 1695. At no time were there more than
           six justices.
             The Court sat, as before, every three months, except in midsummer, and
           except on Sunday and Monday. At the session called for December 4, 1677
           only one justice was present. That was Philip Calvert, who lived at St. Mary's
           City. Calvert, having a writ of adjournment from the Proprietary, tried again
           to hold a session and then, because of the hardness of the weather, adjourned
           until February 1677/8. Even the February session had to be adjourned for
           one day. The attendance at the June session was better than at other seasons,
           but at no time was it really good. There were never more than five justices
           present, and it took four to constitute a court. There were no criminal cases
           before the Court at these sessions, and therefore none of them began with the
           old formula that bade the justices keep the peace and hear and determine
           “Diverse fellonyes murders Transgressions and other misdeeds in the said
           Province Comitted” (Archives LXV, pp. 1, 8, 11, 16, 22, 30, 33, 43, 58).
           Crimes committed in the past figured in some damage suits. Of the cases heard
           and decided by the Court, the great majority were original: only five came up
           from a county court.
             Two men served as clerk of the Provincial Court during these sessions. The
           clerk for part of the time was John Blomfeild, who had been in and out of the
           office more than once before. On February 13, 1677/8, Nicholas Painter was
           sworn in as clerk of the Court, and, almost simultaneously, Blomfeild was
           sworn in as an attorney before it (post, pp. 143-144). Like Blomfeild, Painter
           was also keeper of the lesser seal, and register and examiner in chancery (post,
           pp. 239, 311, 419). The clerk of the Provincial Court was paid, at this time,
           by fees for anything he did, fees the same as those received by the county
           clerks. If he wanted assistants, he appointed them and paid them himself. As
           far as his duties as clerk of the Court were concerned, he was responsible for
           keeping the records of its proceedings, either doing the work himself, or using
           his deputies. There are at least three different handwritings, of varying legi
           bility, in the original liber. Like the other court clerks, he kept a minute book,
           from which later the official record was written out. Sometimes he was ordered
           to put into the minute book material that did not appear in the official record
           (Archives XX, 14). Often he did not enter cases into the record in the order
           in which they had been heard, and sometimes he grouped them according to
           the nature of the cases, several in which the defendant had nothing to say in
           bar of the plaintiff's action, then several more where there was a warrant issued
           for the arrest of the defendant, to which the sheriff returned that he could not
           find him in his bailiwick.
             The clerk surely had latitude in making up the record from his minute books,
           but sometimes he abused his discretion and made careless mistakes. Two pages
           he numbered 540: in the following text the second has been numbered 540a.