INTRODUCTION xv

all matters of fact in provincial court cases, civil and criminal, in the several
counties, except in any special case where it might appear that justice could
not be so equally administered to the parties as if trial should be appointed
in some other place, " as fully and amply as any Justices of Assize and Nisi
Prius in England used, or by Law ought or may try, hear and determine." ^l
Subsequent enactments continued the assizes beyond the period of this
record to i76g.² A noteworthy feature of procedure in these assize courts
was the use of bills of exceptions in criminal cases as well as in civil, under
the statute of 1732, anticipating by a hundred and forty years the allowance
of bills of exceptions in criminal cases in the courts of the state.³ Special
commissions of oyer and terminer were issued upon occasion both to justices
of the provincial court and to justices of the county courts.

5. THE DISTRIBUTION OF JURISDICTION

Jurisdiction was distributed among these courts upon the basis, in civil
cases, of amounts in controversy, and, in criminal cases, of magnitude of pun-
ishment which might follow conviction; and the distribution was altered
progressively to localize the administration of justice as the population grew
and spread. The firm establishment of the provincial court as a central
court of first instance made the adjustment of original jurisdiction slow
and a subject of contention; and as the lesser men gained in political strength
it became in a measure a political cause. But opposition to the process was
not without good reason. The prestige of the provincial court, with its
superior bench and bar, and the convenience of some of the litigants, argued
for the preservation of that tribunal in all its powers. On the other hand,
the convenience of a greater number of litigants, of witnesses, and of jurors,
contended with increasing force for distribution. The same reasons which
in the thirteenth century in England had caused the organization of the nisi
prius system to obviate the necessity of attendance at Westminster Hall
worked for the distribution of trial jurisdiction in the settlement in Mary-
land, and led finally, in 1805, to the abolition of the central court.

At the time of the opening of this present record,⁴ the division of juris-
diction in the larger cases between the provincial and the county courts gave
the latter exclusive jurisdiction for trials involving under 1,500 pounds of
tobacco, and jurisdiction concurrent with that of the provincial court to the
amount of io,ooo pounds of tobacco or £50. Judgments of the county courts
for amounts of not less than 1,200 pounds of tobacco, translated in 1713^o
at £6, were, however, subject to review by the provincial court on appeals

¹ Act 1723, ch. 23, Archives, XXXVI, 565.

2 Acts 1732, ch. i, ibid., XXXVII, 523; 1736, ch. 22, ibid., XXXIX, 496; 1766, ch. 5.

³ Act 1872, ch. 316. And see Lord Proprietary v. King (1732), i Harris & McHenry, 83.
* Archives, XLI, 414; act 1692, ch. 10, ibid., XIII, 447.
= Act 1713, ch. 4, ibid., XXIX, 336.