HELMS v. FRANCISCUS.—2 BLAND 539

tion of this Court, has been placed beyond all further question, by
an Act of Assembly, which declares, " that the Chancellor shall
and may hear and determine all causes for alimony, in as full and

for not making away with her. She therefore humbly implored protection
from his barbarous cruelties. And prayed that she might be permitted to
live separate from him; that he might be obliged to allow her such a reason-
able maintenance, as, upon consideration of his circumstances, might be
thought proportionable thereto; that he might be required to give good secu-
rity for the performance of what should be ordered, so that she and her poor
children might not be left destitute, and that he might be ordered to deliver
her clothes and other little necessaries to her, she being so stripped, that she
had not wherewith to shift herself.

In this case, John Seymour, the Governor and Chancellor, associated to
himself Major-General John Hammond, Judge of the Court of Vice-Admi-
ralty, and one of the council of the Province. Whereupon, it was Ordered,
that Thomas Macnamara be forthwith summoned to appear. And the officer
having made return, that he had gone out of town, it was Ordered, that he
should appear on the 16th instant, to answer the petition, and he appeared
accordingly, but refused to answer.

SEYMOUR, C., 16th October, 1707.—The petition being read to Thomas Mac-
namara, he was ordered to answer thereunto, which he obstinately refused
to do, offering a plea, ore tetius, to the Chancellor's jurisdiction of the matter,
and pretending to support it by the practice of the spiritual Courts in Eng-
land, which in the infancy, low circumstances, and present constitution of
this Province, prevent us from being able to pursue for want of such Courts
or maintenance for the proper officers of them. Wherefore, the Chancellor
being convinced, not only by undeniable testimonies, but even by his own
knowledge of the inhumanity and barbarity of the said Thomas Macnamara
towards his wife, manifested not only to the Chancellor, but to all Her
Majesty's Council in Assembly, before whom appeared, not long since, the
said Margaret, so battered, bruised, and inhumanly beaten in most parts of
her body, that had she not been of a constitution more than ordinarily
strong, she could hardly have recovered it: and finding by daily expressions
the said Thomas to be of a mad, turbulent, furious, and ungovernable
temper; therefore, for the preservation of the poor petitioner's life,

It is Ordered, that during the time the said Thomas and Margaret shall
continue separate, and until they shall mutually reconcile themselves to each
other, and cohabit, he, the said Thomas, shall allow and pay to the said Mar-
garet his wife, £15 sterling per annum, by quarterly, or at least by half-
yearly payments, to commence from the sixteenth day of October. And it
is further Ordered, that he forthwith deliver unto her the wearing clothes
and other small necessaries to her belonging, herein particularly specified,
viz: one gown, &c. &c. Ordered, likewise, that the aforesaid order be served
immediately by the sheriff of Anne Arundel County upon the said Thomas,
and that the said sheriff make return thereof.

From this order the said Thomas prayed an appeal to His Grace the Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury in the Arches: and that he might have a copy of
the aforesaid order to transmit to England.

SEYMOUR, C. 16th October, 1707.—Let the appeal be granted, as prayed;
the said defendant performing, notwithstanding, the said order in all re-