Introduction.            xxix

         pewter dishes, candlesticks and chamber pots, wearing apparel, Turkey-worked
         chairs and Russia leather chairs, and much more household gear (post, p. 234).
         Tilly would seem to have cleaned Parker out. Again both suits were settled by
         agreement (post, p. 240).
           Cases involving servants could throw light on the value set on them, and the
         variations in the amounts were often puzzling. One time a man servant was
         worth 2200 pounds of tobacco, ninety-six gallons of rum were worth 2400
         pounds (post, p. 178). Another man servant, who had made a contract with
         his master, for one year only, was to be paid 4000 pounds of tobacco, plus meat,
         drink, washing and lodging, though there is no reason given for this admittedly
         high value (post, pp. 272-273). A woman servant with eighteen months to
         serve was rated at 8oo pounds of tobacco (post, p. 299). In 1676, a seasoned
         man with four years to serve was rated at two steers, three hundred pounds of
         pork and a thousand pounds of tobacco (post, p. 312). Two servants were
         worth 7000 pounds of tobacco (post, p. 8i). George Charlesworth sold James
         Lewis, among other things, one man servant for 1200 pounds of tobacco and
         another for 2400 pounds (post, p. 198). There was no uniformity in the prices
         paid for servants, but of course there was also no uniformity in the servants.

                        DOCTORS AND MEDICINE

           Again this year there is no great concern with the healing art. Only a few
         cases involve chirurgeons, and in most of them, the doctors are not practicing:
         the word “Chirurgeon” was only an identification, like tanner or cooper or
         salter. The very name of Doctor John Brooke of Dorchester County, county
         justice and administrator of William Worgan, involves some confusion, for
         in this volume and in other places, it is written Brooke or Brookes or even
         Brooks. The historian of Dorchester himself uses all the forms and it is cer
         tain that he is talking about the same person. However, the form Brooke seems
         the best, even in the absence of a signature, for that is the one used in the offi
         cial record of his will (Will Book 7, f. 26). At any rate, John Brooke, chirur
         geon, was not working at his doctoring in any of the cases in which his name
         appears, whether he was acting for himself or as an administrator. In one case,
         he sued John Rawlings for 4800 pounds of tobacco on a writing obligatory,
         and, when Rawlings came not but made default, the Court granted that Brooke
         recover the debt and 836 pounds more for his costs (post, 410-4,1). People
         sued Brooke on writings obligatory and got what they sued for. Several cases
         were brought against him as administrator of William Worgan of Dorchester
         County, and in all of them he either came not but made default, or else he had
         nothing to say in bar (post, pp. 137, 172, 184, 187, 256). Doctor John
         Desiardine figured only in a three-cornered attempt to collect tobacco claimed
         to be due him, and it is not sure that the debt concerned doctor's bills. Jonathan
         Sibrey, sheriff of Cecil County, owed Dr. Desiardine 1700 pounds of tobacco,
         and he promised Edward Bleek & Company that if they paid the Doctor, he,
         Sibrey, would repay them. They did pay the Doctor, but Sibrey did not repay
         them until they took him into court (post, p. 269). In the case of Charles
         Howell v. Robert Hilton, one physician sued another physician, but, again, no