x Letter of Transmitted.

Eighteenth century printers used, for f and for s in the middle of a word, sym-
bols that are almost or entirely indistinguishable. About halfway down the body
of the character for both letters there is a little stroke at right angles. If the
letter is an f, the little stroke is to the right of the upright; if it is an s, the stroke
is to the left. And if the type is old or of poor quality, the little stroke is often
missing, and only the context will tell which letter is meant. In this case, strict
conformity seemed to be a little too precious, so it was decided to use a modern
round s even when Anne Catharine Green properly used the type of her day.

In the printing of the session laws, Green has been allowed some influence.
In the manuscript, the laws are without divisions for paragraphs, and almost
without punctuation. Page follows page without a break. In printing the laws
here, they are divided into paragraphs according to Green, and the side-notes
which the "Act for the speedy and effectual publication of the laws of this
province" ordered Mrs. Green to print, if she wanted her tobacco, have been
reproduced at the proper places, in brackets of course.

The appendices contain contemporary material related to the workings of the
Assembly in the period. On October 15, 1773, the Lower House took into con-
sideration the letters and papers received by the Speaker from other colonies, and
unanimously resolved to appoint a standing committee of correspondence with
all the British colonies. Appendix I contains all the letters and resolves referred
to, as far as they could be got hold of, a hundred and seventy-five years later.
The actual papers received in Maryland have disappeared, presumably for good.
But, since the same letters were sent to all the colonies, those received in Virginia
are the same as the Maryland ones, and they have been preserved'and are here
reproduced, through the co-operation of the Virginia State Library from its
originals or contemporary copies.

Appendix II is Peter Force's transcript of the Council Proceedings of Oc-
tober 29, 1773, from the Force Transcripts in the Library of Congress. Of the
proceedings of the Provincial Council, the last known original journals are
those for 1769-1770, published in vol. XXXII of the Archives of Maryland,
pp. [283]-388. What happened to the originals that Force used, no one knows,
though it is hard to escape the conviction that they must have been in existence
seventy-five years after the period to which they relate. Force himself says
nothing beyond a short notation, "No. 5. Md Archives." His transcript ap-
pears, by internal evidence, to be faithful, and it is included, for lack of a better,
because its contents are important.

One Act of Assembly at the March-April 1774 session was intended to
prevent infection from the ship Chance, at the time lying at anchor off An-
napolis, and believed to have putrid fever, or typhus aboard her. In Appendix