interposition of the governor and council appointed under the new constitution. It was about the 15th of May 1777, given up to Mr. Peale the register before mentioned; and the property of Mr. Harford, including, besides manors, and reserves, all the land remaining vacant or ungranted in the newly erected state of Maryland, if it had not from the very nature and circumstances of the revolution become that of the state, as succeeding to the sovereignty and the territorial rights of the proprietary, fell at least under the general confiscation of 1800, the more certainly as Mr. Harford took no step to place himself within any of the excepting provisions of the confiscating act. The land office therefore, together with the main object of its operations, namely, the land of all descriptions to which a complete title from or under some one of the proprietaries had not been granted, was now in the possession of the state of Maryland. Upon the death of Mr. Peale in 1778, the appointment of register was conferred on Mr. John Callahan, in whose hands the office, after having been closed, with exception of a few renewals and escheat warrants, to be noticed in commencing our account of the actual practice, was fully opened in the beginning of the year 1782, under an act of assembly for that purpose, passed at the session immediately preceding. At the close of the war Mr. Harford came over from England, and petitioned the general assembly for restitution of, or compensation for, his property; which, after counsel had been heard at the bar of the house of delegates in support of his application, was positively refused. An attempt was afterwards made to establish his claim at least to quit rents as theretofore notwithstanding that they had been abolished forever by an act of the new assembly passed in the year 1780; but this met with the same fate. Mr. Harford, after residing about two years in Maryland, returned to England, and is understood to have received a liberal, though certainly not a full, indemnification from the British government for his losses. A slice which he got off the state's (d) bank stock, upon its being recovered, in 1805, terminated this gentleman's claims upon, and relation with, this country.     In regard to the land office, the new government appears to have taken no decisive step until the time at which we have stated it to have been surrendered, and nothing proves the singular and disputable character of this establishment more than that patents should have continued to issue therefrom,     (d) In writing chiefly for the citizens of Maryland, it is not necessary to say any thing further upon a subject so well understood as that of the stock which we held in the bank of England. Mr. Harford was among the claimants whose pretensions so long obstructed the recovery. His claim was compromised by £10,000, the sacrifice was a prudent one, and he was, I suppose, not to blame in exacting it.