540 HELMS v. FRANCISCUS.— 2 BLAND.

ample manner as such causes could be heard and determined by
the laws of England, in the Ecclesiastical Courts there." Febru-
ary, 1777, ch. 22, s. 14, Hence, I take it to be clear, that as the
Ecclesiastical Courts of England would, in all cases of cruelty and
adultery, pass a sentence of divorce a mensa et thoro,and grant ali-
mony as a necessary and proper incident of such a sentence; or
that the Court of Chancery, after such a divorce, would award to
the wife alimony, or a separate maintenance out of the husband's
estate, Oxenden v. Oxenden, Gilb. Eq. Rep. 1; Hobbs v. Hull, 1
Cox, 445; Ball v. Montgomery, 2 Yes. Jun. 195; Duncan v. Duncan,
19 Ves. 395; so here, although this Court has no authority to pass
any such sentence of divorce; or in any manner to meddle with the

spects until such time as His Grace's answer to the appeal be bad; whereof
the defendant is to take notice at his peril.

On the 18th of October, 1707, the sheriff made return, that he had served
the order on Thomas Macnamara, who said that he would not obey it, neither
could the law or any one oblige him to do it. Upon which, an attachment
was issued, and after some efforts to oppose or evade the process, he was
taken into custody, and brought before the Court, and submitted to obey
the order.—Chancery Proceedings, lib. P. C. fol. 579.

This appears to have been the first suit of the kind here, in Chancery, by a
wife against her husband for alimony; of which it had been previously de-
termined, that the County Courts had no jurisdiction—4 H. & McH. 477. It
appears by the preamble of the Act of 1718, ch. 16, (Parks' Laws of Mary-
land,) that this Thomas Macnamara, who had come into the Province as an
Irish papist, and afterwards declared himself to be of the Church of England,
was a practitioner of the law in several of the Courts of the Province, and
had been sundry times suspended here, and in the Province of Pennsylvania,
for his misdeeds, and readmitted here on his fair promises of amendment,
under the authority of the Act of 1715, ch. 48. s. 13. But having then on a
late suspension from his practice, (for a full account of the very grossly
offensive causes of which, see Chancery Proceedings, lib. P. L. fol. 397. 413,)
obtained Queen Anne's order to be restored to it: and relying upon that
royal order, as exempting him from the operation of the Act of 1715, had
treated the Courts in the most indecent manner, despised their authority,
and affronted their persons, which they had been cautious in punishing him
for; being partly deterred by his great interest in England, and partly by his
threatening, litigious, and revengeful temper, as well as his method of prac-
tising upon many unthinking people, to surprise them into certificates and
affidavits in his favor, &c.; by which he had, at length, arrived to so intol-
erable a degree of pride and arrogance, that he had even attacked the Gov-
ernor himself in his character and government, and affronted the Governor
and Chancellor publicly in the execution of his office, &c. &c. Whereupon,
it was enacted, that Thomas Macnamara should be disabled from practising
as an attorney or solicitor in any Court of judicature of the Province. And
moreover, in general, that the magistrates should observe with strictness the
demeanor of practitioners, &c. Dropping what related merely to Mac-
namara, the general provisions of this law were a short time after re-
enacted, and yet remain in force, 1719, ch. 4.