58 TOWNSHEND v. DUNCAN.

Considering the nature of the office and duty of a master in
chancery, and recollecting, that the practice and course of proceed-
ing of the Court of Chancery of England, had been generally
adopted and followed by the Court of Chancery of Maryland, (m)
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 now, in fact, belong to the auditor of this court. For,
whatever may be his appellation or denomination, it is obvious,
that the assistance of an officer, invested with authority to collect
testimony, 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 deposi-
tions 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 Chan-
cery, which was directed to be held at the same place, (n) was
constituted of a plurality of judges; most or all of whom, certain-
ly the Chancellor, were members of the Court of Appeals, the tri-
bunal of the last resort of the province, (o) and consequently as
the two courts could not well be in session at the same time, the
same room, in the State House, was appropriated, by the legisla-
ture, to the use of both courts, (p) which general arrangement,
as to the apartment in the public buildings appropriated to their
use, after they were brought to Annapolis, was continued, and has
by usage been kept up ever since; (q) although, by the Constitu-

(m) Ringgold's Case, 1 Bland. 18; 2 Bozm. Hist. Md. 131.—(n) 1699 ch. 19.
(«) The Chancellor's Case, 1 Bland. 624. *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 Caecilius, absolute lord and proprietary of the province of Maryland
and Avalon, &c. annoque Dom. 1670, and continued till the 17th, was present: the
Right Hon. Charles Calvert, esq. lieutenant-general and chief judge in equity; the
Hon. Phillip 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 took his place as secretary, next the Chancellor.
Upon the 15th day, Edward Fitzherbert, esq. was sworn one of the justices of the
provincial court and chancery likewise, and took his place accordingly.' Chan-
cery Proceedings, lib. C, D. 26.—([p) 1697, ch. 6, s. 3.—(q) Resolution, 1836, No 60.