(2.) In Maryland, the Act of 1717, Ch. 13, § 2, provides that “no negro or mulatto slave, free negro, or mulatto born of a white woman during his time of servitude by law, or any Indian slave, or free Indian natives of this or the neighboring provinces, be admitted and received as good and valid evidence in law, in any matter or thing whatsoever depending before any court of record, or before any magistrate within this province, wherein any Christian white person is concerned.” Yet, nevertheless, according to this same Act, § 3, where other sufficient evidence is wanting against any negro, in such case the testimony of any negro may be heard and received in evidence, according to the discretion of the several courts of record or magistrate before whom such matter or thing against such negro shall depend, provided such testimony do not extend to depriving them of life or member. The same system is pursued in the later Act of 1796, Ch. 67, § 5, which provides that manumitted slaves shall not be allowed “to give evidence against any white person,” nor be received “as competent evidence to manumit any slave petitioning for freedom.” But by Act of 1808, Ch. 81, § 1, it is provided, that, in all criminal prosecutions against any negro or mulatto, slave or free, the testimony of any negro or mulatto, slave or free, “may be received in evidence for or against them, any law now existing to the contrary notwithstanding.” The original Act of 1717 does not in terms extend to free mulattoes, and the Act of 1796 does not extend to the issue of manumitted slaves. But where “a free-born white Christian man” was convicted of felony on the testimony of a mulatto born of a manumitted negro, there was among the judges in the Court of Appeals such diversity of opinion on the legality of the testimony that no decision was ever given.[17] In another case it was decided, that, where both parties are “free white Christian persons,” a free colored person is incompetent,[18] although a mulatto descended in the female line from a white woman is competent.[19]