484 Minutes of the Board of Revenue, 1768-1775.

Lib. No. 86

gaining information of Vacant Land are considerable and the
disappointment of many who may have regulated their Affairs
in expectation of Grants according to the usual Course, will
be severely felt. The Rights of those who have paid for and
obtained warrants and made advantageous Locations, may be
transferred, and the Purchasers proceeding agreeable to the
common Usage in Transactions of this nature would have
greater Reason than we wish them to have to complain of
Injustice, should their Grants be withheld.
If the Measure of opening the Office respecting Lands to the

Westward of Fort Cumberland, according to our opinion

above referred to, appeared improper, as the Agent was fully
apprised of the meeting of this Board, the occasion of such
meeting, and of both the Substance and Letter of our opinion,
if he thought it his indispensable duty to oppose it, his ob-
jections & Reasons in support of them would have been then
more seasonable than they were on the 29^th of April last, at
which time he had received Caution Money to the Amount of
£3459.. — ..6 and since that time to the am⁰ of £2200.. — .. —
and actually given his Titlings for warrants.

p. 137

Our Authority, it seems, has been called in Question. If we
imagined it no longer existed, we should not upon any possible
Motive of self Interest, concern ourselves with the Pro-
prietor's Revenue, but we apprehend as this Board was estab-
lished in consequence of the late Proprietor's Instructions
which have been revived and continued by the general Instruc-
tion upon the accession of the present Proprietor, so we pre-
sume to think that the Authority of the Board is in Force as
well as the Conditions of Plantations, and other Matters de-
pendant on Instruction. If our Authority has however ceased,
we should be at a loss to investigate the Power of Controul
which seems to be Claimed by the present Agent; his Commis-
sion does not shew it, and we believe no former Agent ever
exercised, or claimed it.
Before the establishment of this Board, the Governor and
other Officers, were vested with the power of superintending
the Affairs of Revenue; & we conceive it was upon the suppo-
sition of our continued Authority, that the opinion above
referred to was required by & submitted to the Governor.
The Reasons assigned by the Agent in his Letter to the
Judges of the Land Office, why he thought proper to Controul
their Proceeding in issuing Patents according to the estab-
lished Conditions of Plantation may be reducible to the follow-
ing Heads :
First, That the making Surveys beyond the Allegany Moun-
tains, would be against his Majesty's express Command by
Proclamation in the year 1763.