xxxiv                Introduction.

            appointed. To this petition the Court replied “that as the right Honble the Lord
            Propry of this Province is as much bound by his own Lawes as the meanest of
            his Mattes Subjects resideing here under the protection of his said Lordpç, so
            itt is but just that his cause should be tryed before he be concluded.” (post,
            p. 245). Therefore the Court advised the petitioner to employ one of the at
            torneys assigned him as counsel (and they were the top men at the Provincial
            bar), so that the Attorney General might be compelled to answer and that jus
            tice might be done quickly and effectively (ibid.). At the same time the elder
            Browne and Henry Bartholomew, also of Salem in New England, petitioned
            for the return of the land at Farley, and of most or all of the goods and chat
            tels. The attorney to whom they went thought their case was just, but he him
            self refused to handle it for them. The petitioners suggested to the Governor
            that perhaps the coroner might have wanted to ingratiate himself by getting
            such a verdict from the jury. The later career of Charles James lends color to
            that hint. He became sheriff of Cecil County on January 2, 1676: in just five
            months he was impeached by the Lower House of Assembly for perjury. He
            had sworn falsely against a Cecil County commissioner, and had persuaded
            others to join him. He had forcibly taken from Edward Pynn, sub-sheriff of
            Cecil, a bag of writings of great value, and when protest was made, he had
            said that he, James, was now proprietor of Cecil County. Whereupon the
            Lower House asked the Proprietary to order that James should never again
            hold public office. At the trial the Upper House desired the Proprietary to
            call in James's commission as sheriff, and the Lower House, taking it f or
            granted that his commission as coroner and deputy sheriff would also be in
            validated, was satisfied with the result (Archives II, 490-491, 499). Accord
            ing to the 1676 verdict as delivered, the jurors said “upon their Oathes”, but
            most of those to whom Bartholomew and the elder Browne talked, told them
            that they had never taken an oath at all. As to the land at Parley, the peti
            tioners believed that, if the records were searched with care, James Browne's
            right to it would appear. The Proprietary had granted a resurvey for all his
            land, including Farley, and the return of the resurvey had been entered in the
            record. So they hoped that Farley would be returned to the widow and the
            fatherless (post, pp. 246-247).
              Petitioners John Browne and Henry Bartholomew believed that Mr. Samuel
            Shrimpton of Boston had “very considerable concern” in the estate of James
            Brown. There was clear testimony under James's own hand that Shrimp-
            ton had due him more than 23,000 pounds of tobacco and also £191 sterling
            which he had turned over to Browne to buy goods for the voyage. There
            was also pewter ware and the like belonging to Shrimpton in the store at
            Farley. Since all of the books and papers about these accounts were with
            held from them, presumably in the hands of Proprietary officers, the peti
            tioners were destitute of relief and could do no more than petition for help.
            To all the matters in the petition, the Court replied that, since the Farley
            land had, by valid legal process, become vested in the Proprietary, they could
            not, on a mere suggestion, award land or goods to the claimants. There was a
            due course at law by which they could seek their rights against the Proprietary,