was not used until the year 1751: it is the original warrant of the kind, and the proclamation of 1725 is therefore the one to which, if it must be referred to a single proclamation, the origin of these warrants is to be ascribed.     But although this proclamation, continued for some years to be referred to alone in all warrants for affecting forfeited surveys, and though the second proclamation does no more than to repeat and enforce the subject of the first, the tenor of this first one is not such as to make it a sufficient ground and authority for all the warrants of the kind that were subsequently issued; for it embraces only those cases in which the surveys were made under special warrants (either original or of resurvey), and it was not until the proclamation of 1733 that surveys on common warrants were subjected to the operation of warrants such as those we are now describing; this last mentioned proclamation is moreover in other respects so important a one, and is so distinguished in its circumstances, being made by the lord proprietary in person, after he had (a) suspended the issuing of warrants for six months, that it cannot be safely asserted that this proclamation was not as much in view as any other in the appellation which was afterwards given to these warrants, more especially as, prior to their receiving that name, it was in many instances referred to alone as that of 1725 had formerly been, in the reciting part of the warrants. In regard to the name finally obtained by these warrants, a few further remarks will remove all difficulty. Mr. Tasker, a gentleman of eminent note and influence in the provincial government, was the first person who took a warrant for affecting land already surveyed and which by virtue of a proclamation had become liable to be taken by a second survey to the benefit of the discoverer. If he did not draft the warrant itself, it was undoubtedly drawn from a (b) written application, in which he referred     (a) The proclamation refers to a suspension in the issue of warrants, and the records shew its duration to have been about six months; renewal of warrants already out being in the mean time permitted. The measure was occasioned by the proprietary's intention to raise his rents, which he did by this proclamation. The instrument is therefore, properly of the description of conditions of plantation.     (b) Warrants naturally divide themselves into two parts, the first of which contains the motive or reason of their being demanded, and the object on which they are to operate; and the other directs the execution of what is desired, under certain conditions and restrictions: for this last part of warrants there has generally been a set form, but under the former government the first part of all warrants involving resurveys was allowed to contain any special matter whatever that the parties thought proper to set forth, and which was previously stated in their petitions¾ In a general way these petitions were prepared by the clerk, but it is easy to discover that persons such as Mr. Tasker commonly prepared their own applications, well knowing the importance in land office transactions of being full and correct at the outset.