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Kilty's Land-Holder's Assistant, and Land-Office Guide
Volume 73, Page 301   View pdf image (33K)
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LAND-HOLDER'S ASSISTANT. 301

or as soon as they should be thereunto required. By
this it was sufficiently shewn to be the intention of the
legislature that the business of the land office, in respect even
to lands not yet granted, should be assumed and carried on
under the authority of the state, and by its officers, (a) in
exclusion of the proprietary.

    The next act of the legislature of Maryland which has
relation to this subject is that of October session 1777, chapter 8,
by which the state appeared to have in view its succession to
the bodies of land still remaining vacant, by promising
certain bounties of land to recruits for the army, and to
recruiting officers, with a declaration, however, that if no other
method should be provided within the time specified in the act,
for laying out the quantity of land required to make good that
engagement, it should be procured within the limits of the
state at the public expence. This kind of proviso was
repeated in several subsequent acts promising bounties of land for
military service.

    The act of October session 1780, by which, for reasons
therein set forth, all property, debts only excepted,
belonging to British subjects, was declared, under certain specified
exceptions and reservations, to be confiscated to the use of
the state, put an end, as I conceive, to the questions, (b) how
those bounties of land were to be furnished, and what was to
be the future destination and employment of the land office.
Without entering into an enquiry whether Mr. Harford might
have availed himself of any of the excepting clauses or
conditions of this act, it is sufficient to say that he did not do so;
and, whether by the direct force of this general confiscation,
or by natural and necessary consequence from our
renunciation of all foreign sovereignty, dominion, and jurisdiction
whatever, the right of the state of Maryland to the property in
land held by the late proprietary was from this time deemed to
be affirmed and indisputable. Having thus shewn the state to
be in possession not only of the land office, containing the
records of warrants, certificates, and patents, and the original
papers belonging to surveys of land, from the first settlement
of the country, but also of the land itself, vacant and
otherwise, deemed the property of the proprietary at the time of

    (a)This may seem to have been a thing not liable to any question, but
there was in fact a strange hesitation, as well in the new government as in
the previous temporary authorities, in regard to the land office; and an
idea was professedly entertained by those in the service of the proprietary
that the office was to be held as usual under their care.

    (b) I have passed over a partial confiscation or sequestration of the
property of Mr. Harford, together with that of the trustees of the bank
stock, in the act of June session, 1780, not meaning any thing like a
critical examination of the means and steps by which the proprietary estates
became vested in the state.





 
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Kilty's Land-Holder's Assistant, and Land-Office Guide
Volume 73, Page 301   View pdf image (33K)
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