PREFACE.

The present volume continues the Proceedings and Acts of the Pro-
vincial Assembly from the close of Vol. XIII.

In 1693, Lionel Copley, the first royal governor, died, and Francis
Nicholson, who had been Deputy Governor of New York and Lieut.
Governor of Virginia until superseded by Sir Edmund Andros, suc-
ceeded to the office by virtue of a commission issued in 1691, appointing
him Lieut. Governor of Maryland, with the succession in the event of
Copley's death. Nicholson was in England when Copley died, and
Andros immediately seized the government on the strength of a royal
commission which, as he declared in a proclamation, made him the suc-
cessor in case of Copley's death. But this commission, when examined,
was found to authorize him to assume the office only in case of Nichol-
son's death and Copley's absence, but not in the event of the death of
Copley and absence of Nicholson, which was the actual case.

We have not the Journal of the Upper House for the Session of Sept.
20-26, 1693; but some of the proceedings in the matter of Andros's
usurpation will be found recapitulated on pp. 63-66 of the present
volume.

The most important business before the Assembly at this Session, was
the case of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Secretary of the Province, who had
been illegally suspended from his office and imprisoned by Copley.
The Assembly annulled the order of imprisonment, and in the following
May, Lawrence was reinstated by order of the King, to whom he had
appealed.

Andros soon returned to Virginia, and the affairs of the Province
were administered by Col. Nicholas Greenberry, President of the
Council, until the order for Lawrence's reinstatement was received,
when the latter was chosen President and held the office until Nichol-
son's arrival.

The first Assembly called by Nicholson met on Sept. 20, 1694, in the
old capital, St. Maries, and among other proceedings erected the settle-
ment called Severn, on .the river of that name, into the town and port
of Anne Arundel. It was bruited throughout the Province that it was