soon converted a simple business into a very complicated one, producing new acts and regulations at every succeeding session of assembly until the subject of confiscated property became a science of some labour and difficulty. While I consider it as one which cannot be passed over, I feel that I should ill employ my time, and that of the reader, in dwelling minutely upon regulations that have for the most part spent their operation and interest. I shall therefore not aim at giving a detailed relation of every thing that occurred in the disposal of this property, but shall only notice and in the briefest manner that I can, those provisions that, either directly or in their results, have some connection with the land office.     By an act of May 1781, ch. 23, " for the emission of bills of credit" &c. the confiscated property before mentioned, with that of several other persons therein named, was directed to be sold by the commissioners at public auction, and bonds to be taken for payment of the purchase money in three instalments. On the giving of such bonds the purchasers were to be put in possession, and to have certificates of their purchases, and on full payment of principal and interest they were to have deeds for the property purchased. All the lands so directed to be sold, except those of the Principio company, were to be laid off by the commissioners in convenient parcels, and exposed to sale, either on the premises or at some public place in the county in which the property might lie. In respect to the property of the Principio company particular directions were given for saving and separating the interest of proprietors entitled to have their shares exempted from confiscation, and for disposing of the residue, leaving a choise of methods of partition, to be settled between those proprietors and the commissioners. By an act of the same session, ch. 35, the commissioners were directed to sell the White Marsh furnace and the Long Calm forge in Baltimore county late the property of James Russel and company, with all the lands and stock belonging to that company, for the purpose of securing the certain redemption of the bills of credit emitted by the state, and for which the confiscated property in general had been pledged; and by another act (ch. 37) the property of the Principio company on Whetstone Point &c. which had been the subject of the particular provisions abovementioned, was directed to be sold, under new regulations respecting the shares of American citizens, before excepted from confiscation. By an act of November 1781, ch. 2, the commissioners were directed, in respect to the iron works &c. belonging to James Russell and company, to lay out the lands belonging to those works into small farms, reserving entire as much of the water and ground as might