4 court of appeals of maryland

Court.⁶ It became the chief court of the province,
regarded as the local equivalent of the Court of
King's Bench. In 1722 Daniel Dulany the elder,
in an opinion which he gave as Attorney General
to the Governor and Council, said "that court has
the same authority in Maryland that the King's
Bench has in England." It survived the Revolu-
tion of 1776, to 1805. As additional counties were
erected and county courts established, the Pro-
vincial Court assumed jurisdiction over appeals
from them, in addition to its own trial jurisdic-
tion, and its appellate jurisdiction grew to be of
much importance. Until near the establishment
of the royal government, in 1692, the Governor
and the members of his Council presided as jus-
tices in the Provincial Court, the member of the
Council first commissioned presiding in the
absence of the Governor. After 1692, while mem-
bers of the Council still, for many years, held seats
on that court, it was organized as a separate insti-
tution, and its judges were henceforth appointed
irrespective of any membership on the Council.

For such chancery work as there was the Gov-
ernor acted as Chancellor, sitting in the Provin-
cial Court, until 1661, when the office was made a
separate one, and was filled by Philip Calvert, an
uncle of the then Governor and one of the jus-
tices of the Provincial Court. And to this day the
point of land at St. Mary's on which his house is
reputed to have stood is known as "Chancellor's

6. For an exact history of the trial courts of the province, and of the
judicial system of that time generally, reference should be had to
Newton D. Mereness, Maryland as a Proprietary Province, Mac-
millan N.Y. 1901, Part II, Chapter III, and also to J. W.
Thomas, Chronicles of Colonial Maryland, Chapters VIII and IX.