LAND-HOLDER'S ASSISTANT.
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401
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a common warrant is for taking vacant uncultivated
land, wherever it may be found, and its nature and operation
are well understood:¾A special warrant is for taking vacant
cultivated land or uncultivated land, at the pleasure of the
party:¾
But a special warrant generally goes further. It describes
or locates a particular parcel of land, and in this case the party
is at liberty either to take the land so described, and which
no other person can affect so long as the warrant is
unexecuted, and in force, or to take any other vacant land, not
affected by any other warrant. ¾For one kind of warrant no more
is paid to the state than for the other.
If, then, the object of a special warrant be to obtain a grant
of land which the state, after issuing the warrant, can neither
grant to any other person, nor compel the party to take,
common sense declares, that the description or location ought to
have some certainty or precision: ¾For although the exact
lines, limits, or boundaries, cannot be expected to be set
down before the survey is made, the description may at least
point out to every enquirer the general situation of the land.
It may, at least, enable a person to say of some spot or point,
that it is comprehended within the tract affected by the
warrant.
It cannot be supposed (for instance) that a special warrant
for ten acres can give an exclusive right to survey any ten
acres in a tract containing one thousand: ¾so, a warrant for
one hundred acres, contiguous to a tract, of which the out
lines are altogether twenty miles in length, cannot be thought
to give an exclusive right to survey any one hundred acres
contiguous to that extensive tract.¾Accordingly, such
uncertain, unprecise, locations have never prevailed against
persons, making prior surveys under younger warrants. It
is not sufficient that the land in contest may answer the vague
description, when it appears that many other tracts would
answer the description equally well.
The allowance of a vague description to bind all the land
which may answer the description could be founded on no
sound principle whatever. Either it would be prejudical to
the state, or it would frequently enable one man to avail
himself of the labour, industry, and money, of another: ¾Indeed
a vague indefinite location can convey no other idea than this,
that the party is not determined on the precise situation of his
land, but intends, to pick and chuse during a whole year out of
all the land answering the vague description, which may be
discovered by himself or any other person¾But a warrant
without location would enable him to take any vacant land
which he can find, and which another is not fairly entitled to.
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