for the deputy surveyors. It cannot be pronounced
however that these officers were in theory without use; for it was
certainly of importance to maintain correctness and
uniformity in the proceedings of the deputy surveyors, which, of
course was the main end of these appointments. But the
means were in practice not adequate to that purpose; for,
after the appointment of an examiner general, it does not
appear that the surveyor general saw the certificates returned by
his deputies before they were received to be patented. I
believe these offices did not continue to be filled after the arrival
of governor Eden, as the deputy surveyors appear from that
period, and at intervals before it, to hold their commissions
from the governor himself. The great vice in this part of
the proprietary system was that the surveyor general's
emolument depended altogether on the quantity of work to be
performed by persons of his own appointment, and that in his
attention to the qualities adapted to that purpose, he might
overlook other circumstances important to the fair and
impartial execution of their trust. An officer to supertintend and
controul the conduct of the deputy surveyor to concentrate
and expound the various and disjointed regulations and
customary rules governing the forms of surveys and the
privileges of the several kinds of warrants, and to see that the
certificates were in all respects regular and perfect before they
were admitted to patent, could not have been without utility
if the deputies had been appointed, or he had been
compensated, by the public.
Concerning the duties of the examiner general, who, it
may be alledged, might, at least, ensure the correctness of
certificates, the commissions that were from time to time
issued give but little insight. The surveyor general, in
proposing, in the year 1685, that an examiner should be
appointed for his greater ease and security, describes the purpose
to be " to examine and approve all certificates of survey or
" resurvey before such time as they be received into the
" office to be recorded," and the commissions say nearly the
same thing; but in what particulars, and by what tests, the
certificates were to be thus examined is no where explained.
The examiner was, no doubt, to see that a certificate was
correct in itself; that is, he was to measure the lines and
compute the area of the plot; to compare these lines with the
courses and distances expressed in the body of the
certificate, and to see that they all agreed, and gave the quantity of
land for which the certificate was returned. It is presumed
that he also noticed any evident want of conformity with the
warrant referred to in the certificate, or irregularity in the
time, of execution or return; and I am possessed of some
accidental testimony that he attended to principles in regard
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