64 TOWNSHEND v. DUNCAN.

to there being few cases in which all the witnesses were to be found
in, or could be brought before a master in Annapolis, where the

household furniture, negroes and sheep, had been delivered to the plaintiff, without
any misrepresentation, at a fair valuation; that the mulatto fellow Ned, the property
of the plaintiff, was an ordinary carpenter and cooper, from whom the defendant
received no other benefit than from an ordinary slave; that the defendant had posses-
sion of the plaintiff's personal estate for about five years and three months, that is,
from the time of the defendant's marriage with the plaintiff's mother until he came
of age, and paid the quit rents of his lands in St. Marys, but never during his
possessing them, received any more than £13 18s. 3d. and 4376 lbs. of pork; that
of the plaintiff's lands in Anne Arundel a part was seated, whereon the defendant
had negroes who were employed in making crops, and another part on which his
overseer's wife lived; but that this defendant never was at but one of the said tracts
of land; that the plaintiff's lands in Prince George's, were not seated or ever seen
by the defendant; that he does not know that there ever was any seated plantation on
the plaintiff's lands in Baltimore county; that for the plaintiff's lot in Huntingtown,
the defendant had received the hire of about 1200 lbs. of tobacco; and that this
defendant had a right to the occupation and profits of the plaintiff's lands without
accounting for the same.

At May court, 1736, the plaintiff put in a general replication to this answer, and
the defendant rejoined; and so, the parties being at issue, divers witnesses were
examined and their depositions published according to the course of the court,
the master in chancery made a return as follows:

'In pursuance of an order of the Court of Chancery, bearing date the 25th day of
May, in the year of our Lord 1736, I have proceeded to examine Thomas Sanner of
St. Mary's county, planter, James Biscoe of the same county, planter, James
White, of the same county, planter, John Gaines of Calvert county, planter, Josias
Sunderland of the vsame county, planter, James Dukes of the said county, planter,
Samuel Griffin of the same county, planter, Francis Gaines of the same county,
planter, Walter Phelps of Anne Arundel county, planter, and Jonathan Taylor of
the same county, planter, as witnesses for the complainant, whose examinations,
together with the interrogatories filed by the complainant in this cause, hereunto
annexed. I humbly return into this honourable court. B. YOUNG, Master in
Chancery.'

Here follow the depositions of sundry witnesses taken, as stated, before this
master in chancery, which, as appears by his attestation to each, were taken at dif-
ferent times and places. At St. Mary's county, the 20th day of April, 1737—same
place, 21st April, 1737. At Calvert county, the 17th day of September, 1737—and
at Annapolis, the 22d and 29th day of October, 1737—upon all which the case was
brought before the court.

2d June, 1738.—OGLE, Chancellor.—This case coming on to be heard and debated
in presence of counsel learned on both sides, the complainant's bill and the defen-
dant's answer, and the whole proceedings thereon being read, it appeared to be as
before recited and set forth.

Whereupon this court doth Decree, that the defendant account for the rents and
profits of the complainant's real estate which the defendant received, and which were
lost by his act and neglect; and also, for the profits which might have been made
by the service and earnings of the mulatto man called Ned, mentioned in the pro-
ceedings; and that all just allowances be made to the defendant for bis disburse-
ments on the complainant's account, for which the defendant has not already received