46 court of appeals of maryland

of the Maryland Court of Appeals, regularly re-
sorted to the common law judges for guidance.
"All the justices of England and Barons of the
Exchequer of the Coif," said Sir Matthew Hale,
"are assistants to the Lords, to inform them of the
common law." ³⁰ And the same need was met in
Maryland in the next best way, by resort to opin-
ions from members of the bar not engaged in the
particular cases. It was not an entirely novel re-
sort. In preceding centuries the opinions of attor-
neys in attendance upon courts in England had
often been called for by judges, and the practice
had not altogether disappeared in the English
counties; and the furnishing of opinions to private
persons and to public and private bodies consti-
tuted a large part of the work of leading lawyers
in the eighteenth century, as the various published
collections of opinions will testify. In 1695, as
has been seen, the Governor and Council in Mary-
land took the opinions of the bar on the organiza-
tion of the Court of Appeals, and also on some
questions which arose in the case of Randolph v.
Blackmore. Harris and McHenry's first report
reproduces opinions obtained from the English
lawyers, Charles Yorke and Dunning, (pages 503
and 568), and their second report (page 341) an
opinion of Hargrave; unpublished records of the
Court of Appeals contain copies of opinions of
Sergeant William Wynne, Thurlow, Wedder-
burn, and Dunning; and there are many reported
instances of opinions of local lawyers made use of.
Harris and McHenry appear to have had copies

30. Sir Matthew Hale, Original Institution, Power and Jurisdiction
of Parliaments. (1707), 51. Blackst. Comm. Ill, 56.