INTRODUCTION

This volume LXIX of the records of the Provincial Court, the highest
common law court in the Province, begins with the opening of a session of
the Court on October 7, 1679 and ends on February 23, 1681, at the end of a
session. As it covers a period of less than a year and a half, little change in
the working of the Court is to be looked for, and little change is found. The
jurisdiction of the Court remained what it had been. Cases involving more
than 3000 pounds of tobacco, and criminal cases where the penalty might be
the loss of life or limb had to originate there (Archives III, 422), but since
1676 civil cases of less than 1500 pounds of tobacco had to begin in the county
courts (Archives II, 537; post, 85). Cases might be appealed from the county
courts, however small the issue.

Many of the same justices continued to serve. Thomas Notley, who had been
governor and therefore also chief justice, died in March or April 1679. Baker
Brooke died in March 1679/80. Henry Coursey, though he lived until 1695
and continued to be a justice, does not appear at all. He was active in the
affairs of the Eastern Shore in general, and in the difficulties with the Indians
in particular: perhaps he came back to the Court later. Two new justices were
sworn in and took their seats. George Talbot, who became a justice on Febru-
ary 10, 1679/80, was a cousin of Lord Baltimore, son of his aunt, Helen, and
James Talbot. How and why George Talbot came to Maryland is not known.
He did not appear in the Province until 1680, and since that was the year that
Charles, third Lord Baltimore, returned to Maryland, Talbot may have come
in with him. What his education and his experience were no one knows, but
there is nothing uncertain about his energy and his impetuousness. He got
from Lord Baltimore a grant for the 32,000 acre manor of Susquehanna, and
he tried, with uncertain success, to plant a colony there. After he took his seat
on the Court, he was present on May 13, and on November 23, 1680, and, to
look forward a little, in April 1681, but in February 1680/1, he was absent.
Whether he ever came back to the Court is uncertain. His gayest and most
colored contribution to the Province came later, when he killed Christopher
Rousby, but this is not the time or the place to go into that. William Diggs or
Digges, sworn in as a justice just after Talbot, was, like him, kinsman of the
Proprietary. He had been active in Virginia for a decade or so, and he was
sheriff of York County in 1679. That same year he came over into Maryland,
and he became councillor and justice on February 9, 1679/80 (post, 81; Ar-
chives XV, 268). In January 1682/3 he and Henry Darnall were commissioned
chief judges for the probate of wills (Archives XVII, 130), and keepers of the
great seal. In May 1864 both men were appointed to the Land Council (ibid.
255) and were given a third of all forfeitures of ships and vessels (ibid. 260).
Digges was faithful enough in attendance on the Court, and he took a vigorous
part in Provincial affairs. Of the total of eight men who appeared and served
as justices, the greatest number who came to any one session was six, on