acknowledging, however, one subject of regret, namely that
through those impediments which have in many other
particulars rendered my performance less perfect than I could
wish it, I have not executed my design of endeavoring to
procure copies or abstracts of some of the decisions in the
land office of the Eastern shore. The immediate cause of this
omission is that I found a great difficulty in determining the
manner in which this part of my compilation should be
presented, that is, whether in the form which has been ultimately
chosen or by reporting the substance only of the decisions.
Until this was settled, an application for the necessary papers,
and for the honorable judge's permission to use them in the
way proposed, could not well be made; and when I came to
a resolution, my matter was necessarily laid off and arranged,
and there was neither time or space to make any material
additions to it.
For publishing the adjudications at large, instead of
abstracting them, it is I fear an impertinence to offer any
apology, since whoever reads them will not want to be told that I
could not have given them in a form better than their own.
But to speak of the late chancellor in particular, I have
satisfied myself by a careful examination of his decrees that,
though they are all apparently, and I believe in reality,
original drafts, they are composed in a style of correctness that will
no way lessen his reputation;¾and this being the case, it has
appeared to me decidedly the best course to present them in
his own language, since, if this volume should serve the
purpose intended, of facilitating the trial of land causes, where
the practice of the office may be brought into question, their
authority must be infinitely more conclusive in this shape
than in any form of abridgment that could have been
adopted. I shall now insert the cases selected, chiefly in the order
of their dates, reserving any further remarks that they may
require for the concluding chapter of the book.
¾¾
LAURENCE ONEALE )
a ) Caveat in the land office;
THOMAS GASSAWAY) May 4, 1790.
ON full deliberation of the circumstances in this cause;
the exhibits, the arguments of counsel, the rules and practice
of the land office and the acts of assembly relative thereto,
the chancellor is of opinion, ¾
That it cannot be considered, that the late chancellor
determined the main point in controversy by granting leave to
correct an erroneous certificate; that, by granting such leave,
he did not intend to enlarge the time limited by law for compounding,
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