494

LAWS OF MARYLAND.— 1804.

Persons
having
claims
against any
county may
sue.

SEC. 6. And be it enacted, That any person having any claim
against any county for any real property possessed by any
county, and which by this act is vested in the justices of the
levy court of such county, may commence and prosecute his
action at law for the same, by issuing a summons, directed to the
justices of the levy court, and sending with such summons a
declaration or short note, expressing the cause of action, and
such person may declare against the said justices of the levy
court in the same manner as he might against any individual
for the same cause, and the attorney-general, or his deputy, shall
appear and plead thereto, and the issue shall be made up, and the
jury shall try the same, and if they find for the plaintiff, a writ
of possession shall issue for the recovery of the possession of
real property, and if damages are found for the plaintiff, the
justices of the levy court of said county where such issue shall
be tried shall, at their next sitting after the trial of such issue,
levy such sum of money so as aforesaid recovered, with costs of
suit, on the assessable property of such county, and shall cause
the same to be paid over to the said plaintiff, or his order, in the
same manner as other public charges are assessed and paid
over.

CHAPTER 75.

AN ACT respecting certain Land Certificates.

Preamble.

WHEREAS it has been represented to this general assembly,
that large bodies of land, laying in Allegany county, have here-
tofore been surveyed, and certificates made out, but have never
been compounded on, and now lay liable to be affected by
warrants of proclamation, but from the vast quantities of bad
land included in these surveys, it can never be an object with
any individual to take them up for purposes of cultivation,
in whole, and that as, according to the regulations of the land
office, these surveys cannot be taken in part, and as considera-
ble benefit would result to the county of Allegany, as well as to
persons wishing to make actual surveys for the purpose of
settling thereon, from these large tracts or surveys of land being
vacated, or placed in such a situation as to be located or taken
in part, as well as in whole ; therefore,

Certain
certificates
vacated.

SEC. 2. And be it enacted, by the General* of Maryland,
That all certificates of surveys of land heretofore made in
Allegany county, not compounded upon, and which are now
liable to proclamation, be and the same are, on and after
the first day of August next, unless then paid on, or secured
by warrant of proclamation, hereby vacated, made null and
void, and placed upon the same footing with all other vacant
*The word Assembly omitted in the engrossed law.