Letter of Transmittal.           XIII

        Deeds continued to be filed for record in the Provincial Court and in its successor
        the General Court, until the latter was abolished in 1805. As a matter of
        preference purchasers of land who were non-residents of the county in which
        it was located usually recorded their deeds in the more centrally located Prov
        incial Court office.
          Without entering into a detailed discussion of the evolution in Maryland of
        its court of the highest appellate jurisdiction, which during the entire colonial
        period was composed of the same men, who acting in various other official
        capacities, formed the Upper House of the Assembly and the Council, it may
        be said that a definitely organized body under the name of the Court of Appeals,
        first came into existence in 1694. Until 1694 the highest appellate court of the
        Province was the Upper House, sitting as such in a judicial capacity. Appeals
        from decisions of the Provincial Court down to this time, therefore resulted
        in the anomalous situation, in which the same men heard the appeal sitting as
        the Upper House who had previously decided the case below in the Provincial
        Court; and it is of interest to note that they not infrequently reversed their own
        decisions rendered in the Provincial Court, as is shown by the cases cited later.
        In 1694, however, the new court known as the Court of Appeals, was organized,
        and became the highest appellate body in the Province. While the newly created
        Court of Appeals was composed of the same men who formed the Upper House
        sitting as a court, an important change now took place in the composition of the
        Provincial Court, which thereafter drew its members in great part from out
        side this little group, although always a few members of the higher court were
        found sitting on it.
          The story of the development and history of the Court of Appeals has recently
        been ably written by the Honorable Carroll T. Bond, the present chief judge of
        this same court. The discovery a few years ago by Judge Bond of an old manu
        script volume containing the proceedings of this court from 1695 to 1729, with
        some breaks, has been a matter of lively interest to all students of the history
        of American law. It is the earliest and most complete record that has been
        preserved in any colony of proceedings by the court of the highest appellate
        jurisdiction. it is now being prepared for publication by the American Histori
        cal Association under the editorship of Judge Bond. It was selected by a distin
        guished group of those interested in American legal history as the first volume
        of a series which it is proposed to publish under the auspices of the Association,
        covering the historical development of the law in the American colonies. With
        its appearance the attention of all students of early American jurisprudence will
        be focussed upon the judicial system of colonial Maryland. It is therefore
        not amiss to note here some of the records of other Maryland courts that are
        available for students.
          Down to the year 1 661 equity cases seem to have been heard by the Governor
        and Council sitting in the Provincial Court, as cases of this kind are scattered
        through the records of this court, and no mention of a separate chancery court
        as such has been found. Prior to this date among the numerous offices con
        ferred upon the several governors when they were commissioned, was that of
        chancellor, yet no instance of a governor considering an equity case alone as