OF PROCLAMATION WARRANTS.
FROM the general plan adopted in this investigation,
namely, that of separating and classing the provisions of the
acts of assembly so far as different subjects or heads of
enquiry present themselves, it might be expected that those
provisions or regulations which regard the manner of taking
up vacant land, cultivated or otherwise, by original warrants,
and those which relate to resurveys, would be made distinct
subjects of examination; but, the former have all been more
or less noticed in the preceding chapters, and concerning
resurveys, notwithstanding their importance, the state laws
contain very few express regulations, and those which, in
directing the proceedings in respect to boundaries, surplus
land, &c. have a necessary connection with the subject of
resurveys, have also been already exhibited. Not to multiply
therefore, unnecessarily, the repetions which this mode of
enquiry renders unavoidable, I shall not enter into a
particular analysis of the laws in reference to those two articles, but
shall reserve what remains to be said concerning them for a
part of my general and final observations on the practice of
the office. In the mean time, there are two other subjects
which have hitherto been, but partially brought into view,
namely that of proclamation warrants, and that of escheats.
These require to be distinctly noticed, and to the former I
shall here devote a short chapter.
The origin of proclamation warrants has been fully stated
in the preceding book, and I have there observed that warrants
of the same denomination, but differing in some of their
properties, had continued to be in use under the state
government. The difference, which will presently be noticed, was
at first not in the form, or the effect, of the warrants, but
consisted in the circumstances under which they were to be
issued. They were introduced, or rather recognized, by that
part of the act of 1781 ch. 20, which authorised the registers
