xxxiv INTRODUCTION

in cases removed to the governor and council, too, appellants should " give
in such security as aforesaid." The statute referred only to civil causes.
Until 1705^ no writs of error were issued in England for review of convic-
tions in criminal cases except by favor of the crown, ordinarily as a means of
reversing or nullifying a conviction when the attorney general thought that
such action was called for; and when resorted to for the purpose, as in cases
in this book, the proceeding was consensual in fact, although in the regular
forms of contest. The defendant procured the writ and removed the record,
the attorney general ordinarily admitted the presence of error on the record,
and the court, accepting the admission, reversed the judgment of conviction.
In 1705, it was held in England that in cases of misdemeanor the writ should
be granted as a matter of justice if there was reason to think that error had
actually occurred at the trial, but the allowance in cases of felony and
treason remained a matter of grace. The operation of the statute was re-
stricted to three years' duration in accordance with the general practice, and
this particular statute was revived and re-enacted in a series lasting beyond
the time of this record.²

Upon further conference with the attorneys, the council ordered:

that there be three Prov¹¹ Courts held every Year, Viz^t one on the last Tuseday in
Feb^ry whereat no Jurye causes shall be determin'd another on the third Tuseday
in Ap¹¹ and last Tuseday in September for trying matters of Fact that the Court of
Chancery sit the Munday following from the beginning of each Court and That
the Gover^r and Councill Sit the Wednesday after the Court of Chancery to hear
Appeals and Writts of Error, except Feb^ry Court.³

The clerk of the council, Henry Denton, was, by order of the council of
October 17, 1694, made "Clerk of the Gover^r. and Councill for hearing Ap-
peals &ca. — he being thought the properst prson for the Execution of that
Trust." ⁴ He had been in Maryland since 1684, and in the succeeding four
years had taken up many tracts of land in his own name alone, and other
tracts in partnership with a John Browning. In the records he is styled
" Gent." Besides being clerk of the council he was also, in 1693, ^{one o}f the
justices of the quorum of St. Mary's county court, and, at other times, clerk
of the same county court, register of the vice-admiralty court on the western
shore of Chesapeake Bay, naval officer at Annapolis, and, unless there was
another of the same name in the province about whom nothing else is now
known, he was also clerk of the Talbot County court. • Scarcity of clerks,

1 Rex v. Wilkes (1770), 4 Burr. 2527, 2550; 4 E. & B. 871. And see, in this volume,
the cases ot Vernon, p. 534., and Macnemara, p. 231.

2 Acts 1695, ch. 19, Archives, XXXVIII, 59; 1696, ch. 4, ibid., XVII, 79; 1696, ch. 14, ibid.,
XVII, 86; 1699, ch. 10, ibid., XXII, 469; 1704, ch. 32, ibid., XXVI, 286; 1712, ch. 5, ibid., XXXVIII,
150; 1713, ch. 4, ibid., XXIX, 336; 1721, ch. 14, ibid., XXXIV, 270; 1729, ch. 3, ibid., XXXVI, 453.

a Ibid., XX, 139.

* Loc. cit.