66 Correspondence of Governor Sharpe.

Letter Bk. IV

relative to the Land in Baltimore County commonly called
My Lady's Mannour. There hath not been any Instance that I
can find of a Patents being vacated by reason of the Quit
Rents being made payable in Corn or being less than was at
the time of such Patent's Date reserved on other Tracts tho
the Rent Rolls & Records shew that many large Tracts
granted before the Revolution are subjected to only a trifling
Quit Rent payable in Wheat Corn Capons &c. What was
the Quit Rent reserved or intended to have been reserved on
that Mannour no one here can tell nor whether a Patent for it
was ever signed, but altho it should be found that a Patent
was really signed, is it not invalid ? Since by the Law of
England no Person the King only excepted can otherwise than
by Will give to his Wife any Land or Real Estate. The
Chesterfield Man of War which was to have sailed from Vir-
ginia last June with the Trade then bound to Europe having
been lost on her Passage from N York to the Havanna the
Susanna Capt Arbuckle in which I shipt a Pipe of Madeira &
some Hams for His Ldp is I find still in Virginia waiting for
Convoy, by which Delay I am afraid the Hams will be spoil' d,
but the Wine will I expect be the better for being so long on
board. Having since I wrote to His Lordship the 21^stof June
procured from a Gentleman of this Place four Dozen Bottles
of old & excellent Madeira I have committed the same to the
Care of Capt Craymer Commander of a Vessel belonging to
Mess" Steuart & Campbell who has promised on his Arrival
in London to send the Wine to Your House & I beg the
favour of You to present it in my Name to His Ldp. The
Surveyors having by Letter dated the 29^th Ult signified to me
that they expected to finish about the 14^th Inst. the Line they
have been running for a Tangent (which however at the time
they wrote they expected would fall about a hundred Perches
to the Eastward of the Extremity of the Radius run last
November from Newcastle) M^r Ridout M^r Leeds D^r Steuart &
M^r Barclay are gone thither to meet the Pennsylvania Commis-
sioners & agree on what is further to be done pursuant to the
Articles of Agreement & Commission sent us. As Experi-
ence hath taught us that it is extremely difficult & tedious if
not impossible to run a Line of any considerable Length
exactly true with Plumb Lines or Staves, & D^r Bevis seems
confident that the Parallel of Latitude or Northern Boundary
can be easily & truly described by the Transit Instrument for
which Governor Hamilton & I applied to His Ldp & the Pro-
prietors of Pennsylvania last October I presume none of the
Commissioners will choose to proceed on the Northern
Boundary until that Instrument arrives, but they will probably
lay out as much of the Circle round Newcastle as may be