186
| LAND-HOLDER'S ASSISTANT.
|
Thomas Petite died in the year 1650 or thereabouts and
without heir, that the land was occupied by John Guy, who
married the relict of the said Petite, about eleven years, and
afterwards was occupied by Peter Carr, who also married
the said relict, about ten or eleven years, and continued
after her death to be held by the said Carr, by his lordship's
special favour," &c.
CHAPTER X.
OF PROCLAMATION WARRANTS.
THIS kind of warrant is known by those who are
conversant in land affairs to have taken its rise, and its name,
from one or more proclamations issued under the proprietary
government, by which persons who had made surveys
comprehending vacant or escheat land, and who neglected to pay
or compound therefor, and to take out their patents within a
limited time, were subjected to the loss of all the rights
derived from such surveys; the lands becoming by means of
such omission liable to be taken by the first discoverer,
under new warrants to be obtained for that purpose. The
particular proclamation, however, on which those warrants were
founded has hitherto been a matter of uncertainty as well as of
frequent enquiry, and as the reciting or supplicatory part of
them generally referred to " sundry proclamations," there
was some reason to doubt whether the practice derived its
origin from any one in particular. It has nevertheless been
the most prevalent idea that those warrants were grounded
on A PROCLAMATION not now to be found or ascertained. I
have satisfied myself by an exact investigation how this
matter really stands. The warrants in question, are in a
collective sense, founded upon three successive proclamations,
issued in the time of Charles lord Baltimore, the fourth
proprietary, and remaining upon record in the land office; the
first dated the 6th of November 1725, the second on the
13th August 1732, and the last (by the proprietary himself
at Annapolis) on the 26th of June 1733. The earliest
warrant on record containing in the body of it a direct reference
to a proclamation as the ground of the thing aimed at, was
granted to Benjamin Tasker, Esq. on the 4th of January
1730. This sets out with a full recital of the proclamation
of November 6th, 1725 above mentioned: It is essentially
a proclamation warrant, though not so called; for that denomination
| |
|
|