INTRODUCTION xxvii

All the lawyers so far considered practiced before the central courts in
and about St. Mary's prior to 1695, or in and about Annapolis after that
time. Other lawyers, and, according to characterizations in the record,
usually inferior lawyers, practiced only in the county courts.¹ In 1669, a
defendant in a suit in chancery applied to the court again and again for al-
lowances of time to answer a bill filed, because " he could not as yett retain
and instruct any attorney to draw and prepare his answer to the said bill, all
the Attorneys not already (employed) by the plaintiff living at a great dis-
tance from this court." ² With travel at such slow pace distances were long,
and lawyers did not all practice far from home. As all were planters, and
mainly planters, the amount of attention they found it desirable to devote
to the law probably varied with individuals.

During the period of this record the attorneys were subjected to further
regulations and restrictions, the effect of which is manifested in the recorded
proceedings. In 1707," the council directed that no attorneys should prac-
tice in any of the courts except such as had been for some time members of
some of the Inns of Court or Chancery, or such as had previously undergone
an examination of their capacities, honesty, and good behavior; and an act
of 1715,* provided that attorneys should thenceforth be admitted by the
justices of the court, who should have power to admit or to suspend attorneys
until the king's pleasure should be known therein. Fee charges had been
controlled in the interests of clients since the passage of the act of 1674,^o
and finally by the act of 1715, and another of 1725," the limitation upon
fees was reduced to such an extent that it caused some of the leading attor-
neys, including Dulany and Edmund Jenings, to withdraw from practice for
a short time. The fee upon any writ of error or appeal before the governor
and council was restricted to six hundred pounds of tobacco, and the sum
of ten shillings current money was given as the equivalent of one hundred
pounds of tobacco. Attorneys were required to take oaths in cases before
the court that they had not charged more; and at that oath Dulany, Jenings,
and several others balked. Their refusal brought on a special session of the
assembly on March 15, 1726.⁷ The governor saw the dilemma, still un-
solved two centuries later, and in addressing the assembly referred to the
desirability of equalizing justice for the poorer people by limitations on
amounts of fees, but at the same time remarked the injustice in allowing a
planter to obtain the services of an attorney for the small compensation speci-
fied. A few days later,⁸ Dulany, Bordley, Joshua George, Michael Howard,

1 Archives, XXX, 514. And see post, p. 558.

² Ibid., LI [in press].

s Ibid., XXV, 224.

* Act 1715, ch. 48, sec. 12, ibid., XXX, 248, 252.

⁵ Act 1674, ch. 31, ibid., II, 467.

e Acts 1715, ch. 48, ibid., XXX, 248, 252; 1725, ch. 14, ibid., XXXVIII, 372.

? Ibid., XXXV, 432, 466.

s Ibid., pp. 445, 449.