after revolution to 1805 85

During this period the court had to make few
decisions which now seem momentous. The case
of Dulany v. Wells, 3 Harris & McHenry, 20, on
the right of British creditors to recover debts
which had been confiscated by the state, was one of
many similar cases throughout the thirteen new
states, and aroused much feeling at the time. It
was one of a group of cases carried through as a
test for all, a celebrated cause which drew some of
the best talent of the bar, and was argued with dis-
tinguished ability by four lawyers, three of whom,
Thomas Jenings, William Cooke, and Philip Bar-
ton Key, are almost entirely forgotten. The fourth
was Luther Martin. The case of Calvert's Lessee
v. Eden, 2 H. & McH., 279, was another case of
importance, and a great professional struggle.
The question was one of title to the manor of
Anne Arundel. And the papers of the case
include an array of parchment deeds, seventeenth
century patents, and the like, such as once made
Sir Matthew Hale exclaim: "Noble evidence!"
But however unimportant and lifeless they may
now seem, some of the decisions touched on the
quick at the time. Judge Rumsey, in a letter of
November 27, 1800, to Judge Jones, on some of
the retorts of the aggrieved, wrote, "Fool, knave,
drunkard. May it please your honor to take your
choice, the General (Mackall) may take the next
election, and what you will leave will probably be
intended to fit me."³⁶

No description of the Court of Appeals during
the eighteenth century or during the first quarter
of the nineteenth has been met with; we have no

36. Md. Hist Mag. II, 253.