description which should not be compounded on, or secured by
proclamation, before the first day of August then ensuing
should on and after that day be deemed vacated, null, and
void; placed upon the same footing as other vacant land in
Allegany county, liable to be affected in the same manner,
and in any quantity, without regard to the former surveys;
provided that such lands should not be liable to be affected by
any warrant issued or to be issued before the first day of
August aforesaid.
And, by another act of the same session, ch. 105, all the
land laid off and returned in lots as before mentioned which
remained unapplied and undisposed of, and continued to be the
property of the state, were liberated from the provisional
dispositions under which they had lain, and were made liable
to be taken up and secured like other vacant land in Allegany
county.
These are the principal, and I believe all the material,
provisions of the acts of assembly relative to military, and
settlers, lands westward of Fort Cumberland. Some other
matters have been directed by resolutions of the two houses
which, so far as they may require notice, will receive it in
another place; but besides that these and other resolutions
are generally for the benefit of particular persons, and are
oftener exceptions from, than evidences of, an established
practice, I do not suppose them to be, in any point of view,
precisely upon a footing with laws, and have not thought it
expedient hitherto to notice them. So far, however, as they
declare the sense of the legislature upon points of general
concern, I shall not omit to give them proper attention.
CHAPTER VI.
OF INDIAN LANDS.
IN declining, in the former book, to give an historical
account of the disputes, treaties, and other transactions
between the proprietary government and the indian natives of
the country, I promised nevertheless to notice what might
concern the lands held by particular tribes, under the guaranty
and protection, not only of that, but also, of the present
government. In order, however, to make one work of it I have
reserved this subject for the present book, and perceiving it
to have but little connection with the practice of the land office,
I shall not dwell very minutely upon it. As to the events
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