50 court of appeals of maryland

of a century before his death in 1796, is not in-
cluded ; but while he had studied law in England,
it is not certain that he was a member of any of
the Inns of Court.

Such was the bar, the men who devoted their
powers to the preparation and argument of cases,
and aided the court in its decisions in the pro-
vincial period. Theirs was a larger part in the
administration of justice in their time than is the
part of attorneys working with professional
judges. And they exercised another function in
the dispensation of justice not common now: it
was customary for parties to controversies to resort
to leading lawyers for decisions without litiga-
tion.³³ Besides the early training in England which
many of them had, they seem always to have been
supplied with law books. The lawyers of 1696
when called upon for opinions on one question
asked time to consult the authorities, and citations
in other opinions indicate that their supply of
books was not trifling. Stephen Bordley, a leading
lawyer of the eighteenth century, derived some
fame from his law library, and Thomas Jenings at
his death,³⁶ left a law library the items of which fill
seven folio pages in the records of the Orphans
Court of Anne Arundel County, and some of the
items were of sets of books. And the precedents
in Maryland decisions were known to these
lawyers before the publication of Harris and
McHenry's first report in 1809, for from an early
date it was part of the routine labors of lawyers
to attend sittings of the courts and take notes of

35. 1 Harris & McHenry, Preface, "To the Public."

36. Died December 10, 1796, aged about 60 years.