county; and late the property of a certain George Mock of said county, a German, who died seized thereof before he was naturalized, I desire you will not suffer any patent, to issue for the said land to the said Barrance or any other person until further orders; and you are not without particular instructions from the lord proprietary to grant escheat warrants for any other land which hath already or may hereafter become escheat to his lordship by reason of the death of any Germans who have died or may die before naturalization, unless such warrants shall be applied for by the heir at law of the persons dying seized.                                         HORO. SHARPE."                                         The 21st of April, 1767. " To the judges of the land office."     LIBER W. S. No. 10, fol. 109.       CHAPTER XVI.   LAWS, AND LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS, RELATIVE TO LAND AFFAIRS.       THE reader will long since, have perceived that the modes of acquiring original titles to land under the proprietary government were not regulated by law, but almost wholly by ordinances and instructions proceeding from the sole authority of the proprietary: consequently there is not much to notice under this head, the land laws, which originally formed no part of lord Baltimore's system, but took their rise while the government of the province was out of his hands, being reserved for an appendix or supplement to this compilation. A few acts of short duration, relative to land affairs, were passed in the early times of the province: among these were " an act touching taking up of land," and an act or declaration " concerning rights of land." The first was passed in 1642, re-enacted at the next session, and expired in 1645. The other is among a number of " acts and orders" of an assembly held by commission from Cromwell on the 20th of October 1654, and was occasioned by the proclamation of governor Stone of the 7th of February 1653, declaring that those who did not comply with the conditions of plantation, as well by taking the oath of fidelity to the lord proprietary