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70 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Jan. 6
establishment and maintenance of hospitals at public
expense. This consisted in the purchase by the colony
of the Cool Springs in St. Mary's county and the ad-
joining land for the purpose of erecting cottages and
the furnishing of them together with fuel and other
necessaries, for the free use of the sick poor.
It was confidently expected that Volume XXIII of
the Archives would have come from the press, and
have been distributed before this report was made.
The printing had all been done and the printed sheets
were all in the bindery ready to be bound, when a
serious fire swept through the building in which the
bindry was, and the smoke and water so seriously
damaged the printed sheets that it now seems it will
be necessary to reprint the entire volume, thus occa-
sioning as unexpected and much to be regretted delay.
This volume contains the Council proceedings for
much of the same period as that covered by Volume
XXII, dealing with the epidemic of 1697 and the
public measures taken to relieve the suffering. It also
embraces the earliest mutterings which reached Mary-
land of the coming conflict btween Engiand and
France. These consisted in large part of murders per-
petrated among the northern, English settlers, by small
roving bands of Indians, incited thereto by Frontenac,
the then Governor of Canada, and consequent upon
these there was developed a restlessness among the
Indians as far south as Maryland and Virginia, though
no serious outbreak occurred here. This was the
period also when the seas were much infested with
pirates and many references to their doings will be
found in this volume, especially to the notorious
Avery. It covers the time also when the turbulent
Good and his followers, were creating great disorder
in the province, intriguing against the Proprietor
and becoming the head of the revolution which over-
threw the proprietary government, and by virtue of
which he sought to pose as the leader of the Protes-
tant party in Maryland.
While the destruction of this volume is much to be
regretted, it causes no pecuniary loss to the State or
to the society, and its only effect will be to delay for
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