Esq., hath undertaken, in some short time to procure five Hundred people of British or Irish descent, to come from other places and plant and reside in our said Province of Maryland for the advancement of our Colony there." He arrived in the Province early in 1649, and brought in six persons with him.1 Neill, says, that the Puritan settlement of Nansemund, in Virginia, removed under Governor Stone's auspices to Providence, in Maryland. They may have been the five hundred that Stone undertook to procure to come from other places. They certainly arrived at the mouth of Severn, Providence, now Annapolis, about this time. Davis thinks that Governor Stone was from Northamptonshire, in England, because his county in Virginia and a manor in Prince George's county, Maryland, belonging to Thomas Sprigg, whom he calls brother, both bore that name. According to tradition in the family, narrated by Hon. Frederick Stone, he was granted as much land as he could ride around in a day, and he thus surveyed and acquired his manor on Nanjemy River, in Charles county, called Avon.3 According to the same authority he was twice married, one of his wives being a - Roman Catholic. Thomas Stone, his great-great-grandson, was member of the Continental Congress, from Maryland, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Michael Jenifer Stone, another great-great-grandson, was member of the Convention of Maryland, which ratified the Constitution of the United States. John Hawkins Stone, another greatgreat-grandson, was Captain in the Maryland Line, and Governor in 1794. The Right Reverend William Murray Stone, a lineal descendant, was the third Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland. 1 Lib. No. 2, p. 425. Day Star, 176. 2 English Colonization, p. 286. Frederick Stone, another direct descendant in the sixth degree, has been member of Congress from Maryland, Commissioner to simplify the Pleadings at Common Law, elected by the General Assembly, and is at this time Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland. He resides in Charles county, the place of his birth. APPENDIX F, (p. 115.) THE STATUTES OF MORTMAIN. At Common Law, any man might dispose of his lands to any other private man, at his own discretion. But it was necessary for corporations to have a license from the Crown to purchase lands in Mortmain. Lands so held were in mortua manu, and thus accumulated in the dead hand, through generation to gen eration, became a cause of great jealousy. The clergy gathered great dotations of religious houses, during the first two centuries after the Norman Conquest, until a large part of the lands of the Kingdom were in the hands of corporations which never die. The second of Henry III.'s great charters, prohibited acquisition of lands by religious houses. But this statute did not prohibit acquisition by Bishops, and other corporations sole, and, as Coke says, they crept out of the statute by taking conveyances to ecclesiastical persons and not to religious houses. The statute de religiosis, 7 Edward I., prohibited any person, religious or otherwise, from taking lands in Mortmain. This stopped all alienation of lands for religious or other purposes, in Mortmain. But the ingenuity of the clergy was a second time equal to the emergency and they invented the action of Common Recovery, by which the religious houses brought fictitious suits for the recovery of land to which they had no title, and, by collusion and consent of the real owners, recovered judgment for such lands. This was not alienation by act of the party, but was recovery by judgment of the Court. The statute of Westminster, 13 Edward I., ch. 32, stopped this device, by enacting that on such fictitious recoveries the title should be forfeited to the lord of the fee. And the statute quia emptores, 18 Edward I., specially prohibited again any kind of alienation in Mortmain. Ecclesiastical ingenuity then invented the doctrine of uses, which is, that land may be conveyed absolutely to any person for his own use or benefit, but if the conveyance be accompanied by any direction or instruction that he shall pay over the rents and profits to another, that the Court of Equity, then consisting of clergymen, would compel him to perform the trust. The statute 15 Richard II., ch. 5, prohibits the holding to such uses. Large tracts had also been purchased adjacent to churches and consecrated as churchyards, and this statute declared such tracts within the Statutes of Mortmain. The last statute is 23 Henry VIII., which declares that all future grants of land for a longer term than twenty years for superstitious uses, such as obits or chanteries, shall be void. The Conditions of Plantation only prohibits acquisition of land contrary to the Statutes of Mortmain, enacted prior to the time of Henry VIII. Therefore, it would seem that 23 Henry VIII., was not intended to be put in operation by the Conditions. APPENDIX G, (p. 121.) THE ACT CONCERNING RELIGION. The Woodstock Letters, vol. 10, p. 1, contains papers prepared by Father George Hunter, Superior of the Maryland Mission of Jesuits in 1757. Among these papers, is a memorial to the General Assembly, protesting against a double tax on Roman Catholics, which sets forth their claim to Religious Toleration, and the proof of their right to it. This Memorial alleges, that on planting the Colony, Cæcilius Calvert, caused declarations to be sent forth, inviting all persons, believing in Jesus Christ, to transport themselves to Maryland,... promising an equality of freedom and favor, and liberty of conscience to all, and further engaged to ratify his said promises by a perpetual law. It further alleges, that a Law for Religious Liberty to Christians was enacted in 1640, vide L. 1, p. 51, and re-enacted in 1650, L. 2, p. 17, and confirmed 1656, L. 2, p. 17. There is no record yet found containing such declaration and promise of Lord Baltimore. The Records referred to by Father Hunter, are, I fear, no longer in existence. He is in error in referring to a law for Religious Toleration passed in 1640, led into it by the confusion produced by copying the various records. Our original records, Libers A, B, F and Z, date back to 1636, and consist of folio volumes, the ink as fresh as if written to-day, but the corners of the leaves broken and decayed. These Record Books begin with the signature of Leonard Calvert, in autograph, and contain proceedings of the Governor, Council, of the Provincial Court, of the Court for Causes Testamentary and Matrimonial, of Land Entries, claims and grants, of the writs to General Assemblies, of the proceedings of General Assemblies, and of the acts passed into Laws, Proclamations, Commissions, Official Oaths, &c. All these transactions are recorded by John Lewger, William Bretten, and Thomas Hatton, Secretaries, and their successors for some years. From these books of original entries, copies were made of the Laws into Liber W. H., which is lost, but a copy of it was made and certified by "Will Calvert" under the lesser seal at arms of the Proprietary, being the Calvert arms alone, with the leopard supporters. This seal is in red wax, and now, March, 1883, legible and in fair preservation. This is the first copy of the original records of the statutes as yet found. It must have been made prior to 1680. It includes acts from 1640 to 1678. It is the oldest copy we have. Liber L. L. is a copy of the Acts of 1692, made in 1695 from the original in the possession of the Commissioners of Plantation, at Whitehall, in London. The error of Father Hunter was caused in this way. The laws were collected from the various proceedings of Assembly and copied into one book, Liber W. H. This was again copied into Liber W. H. and L. and again into Liber C. and W. H. The original W. H. contained the Act concerning Religion as the first act in the book, which begins with the session of 1640. Hence the error was perpetuated in all the copies. But Liber W. H. and L. and Liber C. and W. H., show the mistake on the face of the record. Among the acts stated by them to have been passed at the session of 1640, is the act of amnesty for Ingle's Rebellion, between February 1645 and August 1646. I have not been able to find any of the records referred to by Father Hunter as Libers 1 and 2, for the folios referred to by him do not correspond with W. H. and L or C. and W. H., nor with any volumes in our knowledge. The question is settled by the original record of the Council and Legislature proceedings and laws passed from May, 1649 to February, 1650 .S., which is Old Liber A. On folio 245, is the original autograph receipt of Thomas Hatton, Secretary, who certifies that, on the 2d day of April, 1649, he received the book, as Secretary, before the Governor and |