xxiv                 Introduction.

            by indenture or by bond, or by bargains more or less freely made. Many were
            servants by the custom of the country: the country was, of course, Maryland.
            The custom of the country included all master-and-servant relations, and it
            was important and binding even before it was reduced to statute. As in other
            years, most of the cases involving servants came up in the county courts, and
            were settled there. But the Provincial Court could and did hear such cases, even
            when, in terms of pounds of tobacco, the amount at issue was small. There were
            several petitions for freedom. Since servants had not the capacity to bring suit
            (Archives LXV, p. 279), they had to proceed by way of petition, and their re
            quests seem to have been as well received as were lawsuits proper. On June 20,
            1677, Edward Compton of Calvert County said that he had come into the
            Province in 1668 as an indented servant for six years, that he had served his
            time, and had also served some time as penalty for “absent[ing] himselfe from
            his service”. His master, Beckwith, had died, and the overseer, Alexander
            Younger (see Archives LXVI, xix-xx, 404, 471; post, pp. 88-89, for another
            unsavory episode in which Younger had figured), had inflicted on him “ex
            tremity of Corporall punishment which the . . . Propry had remitted & par
            doned” so that he thought he ought to have been free since last May. The
            Court, having heard the reading of the petition, judged that “the petitioner
            is free & that the administrator allow the Petitioner for the time he hath Over-
            served, with his Corne & cloathes according to Act of Assembly.” (Archives II,
            p. 524; post, p. 25). The justice of the Provincial Court was even-handed.
            When Thomas Windoe petitioned the Court that, having been sold to Mark
            Cordea for four years, he had run away for ten days “for which he received
            corporall punishmt to the number of twenty stripes, that his tyme of servitude
            is expired,” he asked relief according to justice. The Court ordered that he
            serve Cordea for a hundred days for his ten days absence (Archives II, p. 524),
            and that he pay his master 360 pounds of tobacco for the expense Cordea had
            gone to, in getting him back. But it was also ordered “that the said Marke
            Cordea pay to to the said Thomas Windoe his freedome corne & cloathes” (Ar
            chives I, pp. 352-353; post, p. 227). Christopher Williamson and Elizabeth
            Royall, ‘both now Servants unto Robert Graham” believed they should be free,
            but the indentures they once had had were lost and gone. Capt. Robert Cros
            man made oath before Secretary William Calvert that they had come over with
            him in the good ship Antelope of Liverpoole on June 30, 1674, and that George
            Mackall, now dead, had bought them from him for four years. “Which being
            read & heard, Itt is the opinion of the Court here this day to witt the thirteenth
            day of June . . . 1678, that the said Christopher Williamson & Elizabeth
            Royall are free.” (post, p. 420).
              According to the Act of Assembly of 1666, which governed conditions in
            1678, “every Master Mistress or dame or trustee . . . owning or keeping any
            such Servt. as a foresaid whether by vertue of transportacon purchase or other
            wise shall within six months after the Receiving such servt . . . bring the sd
            Servt into their Respective County Court where they doe inhabite”, and the
            courts were “to judge & determine of the age of such Sevants [sic] soe brought

            and cause the same to be entered vpon Record” (Archives II, p. 147). Nothing
            is said in the statute about the determination of servants' ages by the Provincial