xxxviii PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY

Ensuing." Greenfield produced his new commission at the August 1697 court. Al-
though his securities appeared in court, no bond had been drawn up so that the
justices ordered the securities to appear at the next court, the clerk in the mean-
time to draw up a bond in proper form. 52

In July 1698 Col. Addison represented to the Council that Greenfield "presses
Men and Horses to carry his common praecepts and private Business up and down
the Countrey and ... contemns the Sheriffs place and saith he gets nothing by it."
It was accordingly "thought fit that the said Mr. Greenfield be no Longer Con-
tinued in his said office." Shortly before this, as noted above, Greenfield, along
with the justices and clerk of the court of Prince Georges County, had been pre-
sented by a grand jury of the Provincial Court for levying and receiving tobacco
contrary to law. Apparently overlooked were the provisions of a 1692 act that no
sheriff or under-sheriff should continue in office for more than two years from the
time of first entrance into such office. 53

The second sheriff for Prince Georges County was William Barton, who, having
produced his commission and posse comitatus at the June 1699 court, was admitted
sheriff of the county; presumably he had resigned as justice. Barton had been
recommended to the Council in November 1698 to succeed Greenfield, "having
very well behaved himself and Shewed his Loyalty and Affection to his Majesty." 54
In the October 1699 court Barton was ordered by the justices to make demand of
Greenfield that he pay over the sum of 10,820 pounds of tobacco adjudged by the
Provincial Court on September 5, 1698 to be reimbursed to the county. When he
refused to comply with the demand, it was ordered that the attorney general prose-
cute Greenfield for the return of such sum at the cost and charge of the county. 55
The disposition of this matter has been adverted to earlier.

There is little relating to the office of under-sheriff of Prince Georges County
in the Liber, except a reference to the fact that at the June 1699 court Benjamin
Berry was admitted to such office, having taken the oath of an under-sheriff and
the other oaths appointed by act of Assembly. 56 Whether the court had a gaoler
is not evident from the Liber.

The several commissions to the justices commanded the sheriff to give his at-
tendance on the court days appointed, and, if need require, to have good and law-
ful men of the county present as a grand jury. By statute the sheriff was charged
with publishing and proclaiming in the county all acts of Assembly and with
seeing such acts firmly observed and kept, with summoning grand juries twice a
year, and with keeping all prisoners committed to his care in any criminal case and
persons taken "in Execution for debt or upon other mean process." 57 From the
statutory schedules of fees it appears that it was the duty of a sheriff to serve writs
or warrants and take bail bonds, to serve attachments and executions, to empanel
juries, to serve subpoenas, writs of scire facias and citations, and to execute com-
missions of recovery. In some cases the sheriff was also apparently authorized to

52. Infra 227; 23 MA 135. The form of bond was not prescribed by statute until June, 1697.
The justices were required to take new security each year, exercising care to take only good
and substantial householders or freeholders as securities. 22 id. 504; 38 id. 105.

53. 23 id. 459; 13 id. 468. In 1699 the period for sheriffs was extended to three years. 22 id. 509.

54. Infra 490; 25 MA 27.

55. Infra 589, 613, 615-16.

56. Infra 490.

57. Infra 2, 187, 520; 13 MA 467, 477, 537; 22 id. 512- See also the statement by Karraker
that "the colonial sheriff lacked two of the oldest and most obscure duties performed by the
sheriff in England: the holding of his county court and of his tourn, or turn." The Seventeenth-
Century Sheriff: A Comparative Study of the Sheriff in England and the Chesapeake Colonies,
1607-1689, 154 (1930).