viii PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY

acceptable to the Committee and to Dr. Radoff representing the Hall of Records
Commission. In this introduction we have attempted to integrate such material
as the acts of the provincial legislature, the records of the Governor and Council
and the House of Delegates, the records of other provincial courts, various other
records of the colony and English law and practice.

The text of Liber A, as printed here, has been modernized in accordance with
the Rules for Style, American Legal Records Series, promulgated by the Committee
on Legal History of the American Historical Association. In general, capitaliza-
tion, spelling and punctuation (or lack thereof) have been retained; contractions
and abbreviations have been expanded. Words or letters within brackets are those
which are now missing or illegible in Liber A but which can be supplied from the
context. In a few places illegible words have been designated as such. Year dates
during the period between January 1 and March 25 are given in both old-style and
new-style. Captions of cases, usually partially in the margins, have been centered.
Other marginal material has been brought into the body of the text and printed
in italics enclosed in brackets. Columnar lists of names or cases have been run
horizontally, separated by appropriate punctuation.

For assistance in their extended task of editing the records here published the
editors wish to express their gratitude to:

Dr. Morris L. Radoff, Archivist and Records Administrator, Hall of Records,
Annapolis, Maryland, for his sustained advice, cooperation and readiness to make
available the facilities of the Hall of Records;

Mr. Gust Skordas, Assistant Archivist, Hall of Records, for his work in tran-
scribing the text of Liber A and his expert guidance on seventeenth century
Maryland court records;

Miss Juliette Tomlinson, Director of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum,
in Springfield, Massachusetts, for her assistance in modernizing the text of Liber A;

Mrs. Lois Green Clark, Junior Archivist, Hall of Records, for her painstaking
work in compiling the index of proper names and her informed editorial comment;

Mrs. Bryce D. Jacobsen, Junior Archivist, Hall of Records, for supplying much
of the biographical data on the personnel of Prince Georges County Court;

Dr. Boyd C. Shafer, former Executive Secretary of the American Historical As-
sociation, for his patient handling of the many tasks entailed in publication;

Mr. William M. Passano, Jr. and Mrs. Ardis A. Welch of the Waverly Press, Inc.,
of Baltimore, Maryland, for their cooperation at the printing stage;

Mrs. Joseph H. Smith, for editorial assistance in connection with the introduc-
tion and retyping portions of the transcript of Liber A;

The officials and staff of the Maryland Historical Society for their cooperation
in background research; and

The Chairman and members of the Committee on the Littleton-Griswold Fund
for their tolerance and understanding as the work slowly progressed towards
completion.

I. THE MARYLAND BACKGROUND

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 which placed William and Mary on the
throne of England had revolutionary consequences in the distant province of
Maryland. The Protestant element in the colony, constituting a sizeable majority
of the population, had long chafed under the dynastic, pro-Catholic rule of Charles
Calvert as governor of the province since 1661 under his father, Cecil Calvert,
second Lord Baltimore, and, after 1675, as proprietor and third Lord Baltimore.
This rule ultimately rested upon the provisions of the royal charter of 1632,