8 court of appeals of maryland

of the suit¹⁵), seeming to give power to remedy all matters and
things that are not essential against the merits of the cause,

ordered,

that until a law be made for directing how writs of error
shall be brought from the judgment of the Provincial Court
and a Statute of Jeofails made, no writ of error shall hereafter
be brought against any judgment in the Provincial Court or
any judgment there stayed or superseded by any writ of error
returnable in Assemblies till such law be made, but that if any
person find himself aggrieved by the judgment of the said court
he shall move the court to arrest the judgment till the next
court and within a fortnight after the court file his errors and
reason for the arresting the said judgment to which the other
side is to answer by the next court.¹⁶

Meanwhile, it was ordered, cases already pending
in the Upper House might be heard and disposed
of there by agreement of the parties, with a waiver
of all defects and informalities, and some of the
pending cases were accordingly heard by agree-
ment of counsel after 1681.¹⁷ But no law was
enacted for the regular hearing of such cases for
thirteen years, or until 1694.

It was in or about St. Mary's, the first capital,

that this judicature of the earlier seventeenth cen-
tury had its seat. And it was only during "assem-
bly time" that the cases on error were taken up.
The appeals were to the parliament, and that body
functioned only when the Assembly was in session.
For judges of the various courts, including the
councillors sitting as judges of the Court of Ap-
is. "Matter in suit," in the original act.

16. Spelling has been modernized in this and other extracts from old
records, but no words have been changed. Punctuation has been
altered in some instances.

17. For instance, the case of Collins v. Watkinson, Archives, Proc.
Assembly, 1678 to 1683, 501, 502; the same case before the Pro-
vincial Court reported in 1 Harris & McHenry, 12.