xlii INTRODUCTION

portion of the space in the latter half of the book, and in its course it illustrates
a variety of remedies and proceedings. Not all of the proceedings taken in Mary-
land are set out in this record; information as to cases that did not reach this
court is to be found in recitals in others that did reach it, and in records of trial
courts; and all that is of record in Maryland is to be supplemented by reference to
the records of the Privy Council in England.

Out of one dispute between two parties to a charter party arose eight suits,
seven writs of error or appeals within the province and five appeals to the King
in Council. On the one side throughout the contest were Jonathan Forward, a
London merchant who, under a contract with the British government, had
shipped convicts to Maryland to be sold out to service,¹ and contracted for a
return cargo to London; and with him, on the same side, agents and factors in
Maryland, and their sureties, who made efforts to protect Forward's interests,
and had to protect their own personal interests which became involved. On the
other side, originally, was Gilbert Powlson, master of the ship " Dolphin,"² who
made the charter party with Forward, and, with him, later superseding him, was
Thomas Bordley, his attorney, who carried on the contest in his own interest as a
purchaser of bills of exchange drawn on Forward. The litigation seems to have
been influenced by something more than the grievances and causes of action de-
clared in the proceedings, for the Maryland courts appear inclined to Bordley's
side in all things, and Dulany, representing the other side, made no contest before
the courts of first instance, and little, if any, before the Court of Appeals, trust-
ing the salvation of his clients rather to the Privy Council in England. The
governor fought with Dulany. What the underlying cause may have been cannot
be determined now, but a guess that opposition to the importation of convict
servants may have had influence has plausibility, although it may be thought
hardly sufficient to account for the pertinacious, unrestrained character of the
contest made by Bordley.

The charter party, executed in England on September 5, 1717, required, ac-
cording to Forward, that payment should be made to Powlson upon his return
to the Thames, at a fixed rate for each month out from London. When about
to return from Maryland, Powlson was arrested there in suits on debts previously
incurred by him in the province,⁸ and from the jail he sent a petition to the
governor representing that Forward then owed him £470 and praying that he be
relieved from durance by enforcement of payment of the amount. The gover-
nor referred the petition to Bordley, then attorney general, and Bordley, on behalf
of Powlson, filed a libel in the vice-admiralty court and had goods of Forward's
to the value of £2000 seized and held. After an unsuccessful effort in the chancery
court to secure release of his goods, Forward obtained from the Privy Council in
England, on August 11, 1720,* an order that, upon his giving sufficient security
in Maryland, the goods, or their value if already sold, should be restored to him,

1 Archives, XXV, 435.

² The " Dolphin " had previously brought slaves to the province. Ibid., p. 257.

³ Rousby v. Powlson (1718) , MSS. Provincial Court Records, Liber P. L. no. 4, 109;
Tunstall v. Powlson (1719), ibid., fol. 261, and Liber W. G. no. i, fol. 97. Other suits against
Powlson were abated or countermanded.

* Archives, XXV, 425 et seq.; A. P. C., Col., II, 781-785; Md. Hist. Mag., Ill, 225.