xii                  Introduction.

         session or the opening of the next case, but by the opening of the next session.
         Although there must be at least four justices present to constitute a session of
         the court, some actions could take place before a single justice. In October
         1680, Henry Exon borrowed 12,332 pounds of tobacco from William Digges,
         and he did not repay, though often thereunto required. Justice Digges sued
         Exon, and, on April 22, 1681, the innholder appeared before Chancellor Philip
         Calvert, who was also a justice, and confessed judgment for the amount of the
         loan plus 6oo pounds of tobacco costs, with a stay of execution for six months
         (post, pp. 18-19). A little later the account between the same two men showed
         Exon in debt to Digges for 27484 pounds of tobacco unpaid. Again Exon
         confessed judgment before a single justice, this time before Vincent Lowe,
         surveyor-general of the Province (post. p. Pccau3c Exon came in the

         instant he was summoned, nothing was added to his penalty beyond debt
         and costs.
           The clerk of the Provincial Court when the session of April 1681 began was
         Nicholas Painter. Painter had been appointed by the Secretary General, and he
         was, in addition to his work with the Court, also keeper of the lesser seal of
         the Province and chief clerk of the Secretary's office. Painter was succeeded
         as clerk of the Court by William Cocks (one time when the spelling of a proper
         name, if unusual, was unfform) on March i, 1681/2, and on the same day
         Painter was admitted and sworn in as an attorney of the Court (post, p. 115).
         Cocks was sworn in a second time on March 28, 1683. The clerk was supposed
         to take notes of the proceedings in the court room, possibly in shorthand, but
         it was up to him how he compiled the official record from his notebooks
         (Archives XX, p. 314). Like his predecessors and his successors, Painter was
         careless. The Court comes to a decision and Painter does not give the month and
         d2y (post, p. 186). In another case, the parties appeared by their attorneys,
         and Defendant John Nickolls by her attorney sayeth . . .“. Her attorney,
         not his attorney. (post, p. 130). John Doyly on March 2, 1671/2, submitted to
         the Court a petition for relief from the bondage in which he was being held.
         Such petitions were not unusual, and very often indeed, the Court granted
         them. But this time they said the purported undenture was invalid, and that
         the “said Thomas Doyly” serve five years from the time of his arrival (post,
         pp. 166-167). Was the man John or was he Thomas?. In the case of Bowling v.
         Slye (post, 270-272) both parties had the same attorney. As the clerk recorded
         it, at least. Sometimes he just left out things, in excess of his discretion.
         Thomas Bland, suing Richard Hill for slander, said, among other things, that
         he (Bland) had been, on December 10, 1672, admitted and sworn as an attorney
         of the Court, (post, p. 9). But careful search of the Court records and of the
         Assembly records as well for December 10, 1672, which are printed in vol
         ume LXV of the Archives, shows no such admission. In the very first case
         set forth in this volume, the clerk seems to have gone quite wrong. William
         Phelps sued Edward Pindar, administrator of William Foorde, on a plea of
         trespass on the case. When the case came up in court, administrator Pindar
         said he had fully administered all of Foorde's goods. The Court said he had
         not thus fully administered, and ordered that Phelps have what was still due