CHAP. II.
                            An ACT to prevent desertion.

    To continue during the year.  Expired.  This act empowered any person to apprehend a man suspected
of being a deserter, and to carry him before a justice of the peace for examination, &c.  It proposed a
reward for the apprehender, and inflicted fines on the harbourers or concealers of deserters, and on the
constable who should neglect to execute this act, and on person who should refuse to assist him, and upon
those who should deal for arms, horses, cloaths, or other furniture, knowing them to belong either to this
state or to the United States.  These fines were levyable by distress and sale of goods, under a warrant, for
the sole use of the informer; and if they could not be so levied, the offenders, for the first offence, were
to suffer three months inprisonment; for the second offence, if the fines were not levied, the offenders
might be punished by whipping not exceeding 39 lashes.
    A magistrate, upon oath or affirmation, might issue his warrant to search any house suspected of harbouring
a deserter, and, for that purpose, to break doors if not opened on demand.  A penalty of 20 dollars,
however, was to be inflicted on any person who, without a warrant, should break open a house under
pretence of searching for a deserter, and this penalty was to be awarded to the party grieved, and might
be levied either on the body or goods.

    This act exempted any inhabitant of the state, enlisting into a state battalion, or into any of its artillery
companies, from arrest for debt under £. 12 sterling, £. 20 currency, or 200lb. of tobacco; and it
also exempts his property from attachment or execution for such debt.  If an arrest, attachment or execution,
took place contrary to this act, a single justice of the peace, on complaint of the party, or his
officer, might discharge the person; and unless it were made appear, that waste was committed in the
property, by the soldier, his wife, or the persons having the care and possession of it, the justice might set
aside the attachment or execution, and award costs.  But this act did not expose the creditor to be affected
by the act of limitations, on account of the delay occasioned by it.
    Recruiting officers were authorised to enlist servants or apprentices not having more than eighteen
months to serve, on paying to their masters the value to which they might be appraised by a justice, who
was, in all cases where the recruit was entitled to freedom dues, to make the master account to him for the
sum of £. 6 in lieu of them.  But if an officer enlisted a servant or apprentice, and neglected, on demand
of the owner, to carry him before a justice, he forfeited to the owner the sum of £. 10, to be recovered
and levied on the person or property, under a warrant.
    The governor was required to appoint in every hundred, a person to collect blankets.  The duty of
this officer was to call on every house-keeper in his district for an account of his stock of blankets,
over and beyond the number generally used by his family in the winter, and this account, if the
collector thought proper, was, under the penalty of £. 20, to be delivered on oath.  The like penalty
was to be incurred if one half of such surplus blankets were not delivered to the collector.  The value of
them was to be ascertained either by agreement, or by the valuation of one sworn appraiser, and discharged
by the treasurer of the respective shore, who was to transmit, with all convenient speed, to the governor
and council, fair lists of the blankets so collected and paid for.  The collectors, before they acted,
were directed to take an oath for the faithful discharge of duty; and for their services they were to be allowed
a commission of five per cent. besides their reasonable charges for conveying the blankets to the
places of deposit, which were Chester-town for the eastern, and Baltimore or Annapolis for the western
shore.  The whole stock so collected was subject to the orders of the executive.