course and distance, or to the next boundary, if any, shall be
liable to be affected as vacancy; and before any grant shall
issue on any certificate expressing more than one boundary for
the beginning, the owner shall make oath or affrmation (as the
case may be) that he knows or believes that the distances
mentioned in the certificate were actually run, and that no more
land is contained by the lines and boundaries than returned by
the surveyor; and every surveyor, before he enters on the
execution of his offices shall swear (or affim) that he will not
mention any boundary in his certificate of any survey unless
he shall actually run and measure the distance to such
boundary, and that the boundary or boundaries by him returned
shall be at the end of the line as expressed, and that the
certificate does not contain more land than certified by him to the
best of his knowledge and belief."
The 15th section directs certain annual returns to be made
from the land office to the commissioners of the tax, respecting
which, alterations have been since made, which will be
noticed in speaking of the duties of the registers.¾The 16th
relates to confiscated property, and the 17th and last section of
the act under consideration, repeals the powers of the
commissioners of that property to grant warrants for, and contract
for the sale of, escheat land.
The act of April session, 1782, ch. 38, many of the
provisions of which have been already noticed, contains some
further ones applicable to this head of enquiry. It prescribes,
as has been before incidentally mentioned, the now established
rule that certificates shall lie in the office six months after they
are compounded on, before they can be admitted to patent.
The 3d section directs that chain carriers shall be sworn, and
prescribes their oath, to be noticed more particularly
hereafter. The 5th directs that where certificates include land
lying within any of the reserves made by the late proprietaries,
no grants shall issue thereon before they are corrected so as
to exclude such reserve land: the 6th and 7th, pursuing the
same subject, and reciting that persons, by mistake or
misapprehension of the act opening the land office, may conceive
that they have a right to take up the lands reserved for the
use of the late proprietary as common vacancy, direct that
instructions shall be given by the governor and council to the
surveyors not to run the lines of any common warrant,
special warrant, or warrant of resurvey, issued or to issue out of
the land office for common vacancy, into the manors or lands
theretofore reserved for the use of the proprietary, or which
may have been set apart for the use of the Nanticoke indians,
the said reserves being appropriated to such uses and
purposes as the general assembly shall thereafter direct and appoint,
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