54 TOWNSHEND v. DUNCAN.—2 BLAND.

are to keep close and private until publication. But if the wit-
nesses reside more than twenty miles from the place where the
Court is held, then a commission issues to certain commissioners,
nominated by the parties, who are authorized and directed,to take
the depositions of such witnesses in private; which are returned
and kept secret, until an order of publication is passed. The ex-
amination of witnesses was originally in Chancery before the master
of the rolls, who was one of the Judges of the Court; and there-
fore, such examinations now by a master, by an examiner, or by
commissioners, must be considered as a delegation, by the Court,
of a part of its authority to them. Forum Rom. 124; 1 Harr.
Prac. Chan. 430, 482.

* Considering the nature of the office and duty of a master
58 in Chancery, and recollecting, that the practice and course
of proceeding of the Court of Chancery of England had been
generally adopted and followed by the Court of Chancery of Mary-
land; Ringgold's Case, 1 Bland, 18; 2 Bozm, Hist. Md. 131; it could
not be deemed altogether unsafe, at once, to assume, that all the
powers and duties of a master in Chancery in England, so far as
they were, in any way, subservient to the proper exercise of this
Court's jurisdiction, as a Court of equity, had devolved upon, and
did DOW, in fact, belong to the auditor of this Court. For, what-
ever may be his appellation or denomination, it is obvious, that
the assistance of an officer, invested with authority to collect testi-
mony, to make investigations, calculations and statements of
accounts, and to put in order the various materials, of which com-
plex cases in equity are composed, is as indispensably necessary to
the cheap and expeditious administration of justice by a Court of
Chancery, as that of an examiner, or of commissioners clothed
with no other authority, than that of taking and returning the
depositions of witnesses.

It appears, that until some time after the year 1699, when the
seat of government was removed to Annapolis, the High Court of
Chancery, which was directed to be held at the same place, 1699,
eh. 19. was constituted of a plurality of Judges; most or all of
whom, certainly the Chancellor, were members of the Court of
Appeals, the tribunal of the last resort of the Province; The
Chancellor's Cane, 1 Bland, 624; (f) and consequently as the two

(f) "At a Court held for the Chancery and Provincial Court, begun on
Tuesday, the 30th day of December, in the 39th year of the Dominion of
Csecilius, absolute Lord and Proprietary of the Province of Maryland and
Avalon, &c. annoque Dom. 1670, and continued till the 17th, was present:
the Eight Hon. Charles Calvert, Esq. Lieutenant-General and Chief Judge
in equity; the Hon. Philip Calvert, Esq. Chancellor; William Talbot, Esq.
secretary; William Calvert; Baker Brooks, Thomas Trueman, and Samuel
Chew, Esq's. This day the Hon. William Talbot, Esq. principal secretary,
was sworn one of the Justices of the Provincial Court and Chancery, and