lands westward of Fort Cumberland, being those which we have noticed in the former book as having been issued in consequence of the order of the board of revenue, taking off the reserve that had been laid on those lands. In opening the land office, by the act of 1781, ch. 20, the lands located or surveyed by, or under those warrants were excepted from the general appropriation of the vacant land in that quarter, but grants thereon were suspended until the further order of the general assembly. It was now thought proper to let those grants pass, but not until after the first day of July following the passage of the act, and with proviso and condition that the common consideration of one shilling sterling per acre had been paid, and that the certificates were bona fide the property of citizens of Maryland or of some of the United States at the time of opening the land office as aforesaid; and further, that if a grant had been, or should thereafter be, obtained on any certificate returned in virtue of any warrant issued between the two days before specified, which certificate at the time of passing the before mentioned act of 1781, was not bona fide the property of some citizen as aforesaid, or for which the consideration was (at the passage of the said act) unpaid, such grant should be void, and should be so held and adjudged, &c. The special powers given to the chancellor for discovery of the truth, and directions concerning the proceeding to be had in these cases, will be noticed in another place. But there follow two other provisions concerning warrants granted for lands westward of Fort Cumberland, by the first of which it was declared that any grant issued, or to issue, on such warrants; obtained on or after the sixth day of October 1774 aforesaid, should be void, and so held, &c. By the other, being the last section of the act under consideration, it was provided that where surveys westward of Fort Cumberland had been made under warrants obtained between the 22nd of March and the 6th of October 1774 in which the quantities expressed in the warrants had been exceeded, grants might issue on such surveys, on the excess being paid for to the treasurer of the Western Shore, provided that the warrants had not been exceeded more than one fourth. A provivision was afterwards made, by a supplement to this act, passed at the session of 1785, chapter 67, for certain cases in which the warrants had been exceeded more than one fourth, and the whole excess compounded on under the act of April 1782, chapter 38, or that of the November session of the same year, chapter 5. These cases were referred to the chancellor, who, by examination, in the manner prescribed in the original act, was to ascertain whether the certificates were regular in respect to the citizenship of the parties as before defined, and was then to consider and determine whether the