PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, vii

existed at the time of the first emigration of the people of
Maryland, and which, before the fourth day of July 1776, by
experience, had been found applicable to their local and other
circumstances, and of such others as had since such emigra-
tion been made in England or Great Britain, and had been
introduced, used or practised by the courts of law or equity in
this State, that order may be taken therein." This Resolution
does not appear to have been acted on; but, fifteen years later,
the matter was again taken up in the Legislature, under the
auspices of the late Chancellor Bland, to whom the Lav in
Maryland is otherwise so much indebted. He probably thought
it better to follow the course that had been marked out before;

and, accordingly, by Resolution No. 12 of Nov. Sess. 1809
(printed in the book before referred to as No. 22), moved by
him, the subject was referred to the Chancellor and the Judges
of the Court of Appeals, in nearly the terms of the Resolution
of 1794, the principal difference being, that the commission
was directed to report all such parts of the English Statutes
as were proper to be introduced and incorporated into the body
of the Statute law of the State. The fruit of this Resolution
was the elaborate Report of Kilty — the then Chancellor —
to which I have referred, and in which lie classified the greater
part of the British Statutes down to the Revolution into three
grand divisions; the first, containing the titles of such Stat-
utes as had not extended to the Province — the second, of those
which had extended, but were not proper to be incorporated —
and the third, of those vhich had extended and -ff-ere proper
to be incorporated. It is a little curious that, when, at Nov.
Sess. 1810, it was proposed, on the motion of the same Mr.
Bland, to print one thousand copies of the Report for the use
of the State, the spirit of 1794 had so exhaled, that the House
of Delegates was evenly divided on the adoption of the Reso-
lution (No. 12 of that year in the before mentioned book), and
it was fmally passed on a tie by the vote of the Speaker—
whose name it gives me pleasure to set down here — Gen.
Tobias E. Stansbury, of Baltimore County. The economical
scruples, which had then so much influence in the Legislature,
probably prevented the publication, at that time, of the Stat-
utes themselves according to the Report— a publication, which
there is reason to believe that Chancellor Bland designed to
take under his special superintendence. They still continued