Introduction.             xxi

     versie”, gave it to his “well beloved Wenlock Christison”, later, in drawing up
     his will, in March 1672, the Doctor left personality, said to have been forty
     shillings sterling to Wenlock and his wife. This was in 1672: on [April] 14,
     1676, Christison was in trouble with the Friends meeting, in trouble even though
     they had enough confidence in him to hold the meeting at his house. The
     charges we do not know, but he made what seems like an indifferent answer.
     He declared in meeting that if the world should reproach any Friends about
     his “proceedings in takeing his wife that then he will give further satisfaction
     and cleere the truth and ifriends by giveing forth a paper to condemn his hasty
     and forward proceedings in that matter And said that were the thing to do
     Againe he would not proceed so hasty nor without the Consent of ifriends
     (Third Haven Records, vol. I, p. i). The meeting of [September] 8, 1676 let
     the matter lie over until the semi-annual meeting. After renewing his promise,
     Christison did at last enter his defense (which is no longer in existence), and
     he said that the meeting could publish it, if they believed he had cleared the
     matter. There is nothing more about it in the records of the meeting. It is
     probable that the marriage he was defending was a second one, and that he had
     entered into it either without previous word to the meeting, or possibly even
     that he had married someone not a member of the meeting. It is doubtful that
     the meeting would be reproaching him in 1676 for a union already in existence
     in 1672. It was in that year that the will of Dr. Peter Sharpe speaks of Wenlock
     Christison and his wife. (Will Book I, p. 494).
       Christison in Maryland had lands and servants and friends and a family.
     More than that he had the respect of his friends and neighbors. In the records
     now available there is no mention of his election to the Lower House of the
     Assembly, but those records are so worm-eaten that the absence of his name is
     not conclusive. The first mention of him in the Journal is dated May 23, 1674,
     and it is concerned with a petition from the Quakers about the oath. They
     wished to be relieved from the necessity of taking an oath, and they proposed
     that if this was done, they would be willing to suffer the same penalties for
     breaking their word, as were inflicted on those who broke an oath or were
     forsworn (Archives II, 355). Of this petition Christison was the first signer.
     The petition was sent back to the Upper House, and that house, being uncertain
     whether the Provincial legislature had the power to alter the form of oath
     provided by the laws of England, ordered the matter suspended until the Pro
     prietary could be heard from. His Lordship had said he intended to gratify the
     Quakers, but that he wanted proceedings suspended until he could hear from
     (Ibid., p. 492), from “his learned Councell in England”.
       During his stay in the Barbadoes, that is, sometime between 1665 and 1669,
     Christison met Edward Oystin or Ostin, and the two had some business dealing.
     Late in 1669, Christison, preparing to continue on into Maryland, planned a
     transaction with Oistin. November 12 of that year Oistin shipped aboard a
     ketch then in the Barbadoes roadstead, three negro men, Ned, Toby and Jack
     to the order of Christison at the port of Patuxent in Maryland. The charge for
     the frcight of the thrcc wa3 400 pounds of Mu3cavadoc sugar per head.

     Christison agreed to receive the men and to dispose of them for the account of