216 HANNAH K. CHASE'S CASE.—1 BLAND.

In Maryland, although it is said, that lands were sometimes con-
veyed by fine passed in the Provincial or County Court, Hammond's
Lessee v.Brice, 1 H. & McH. 323, or by common recovery; 1760,ch.
21, yet it would seem, that there had been many instances of con-
veyances made, in the form of mere common contracts, with inten-
tion to bind the interests of married women as it they had been sole,
which were afterwards ratified and confirmed. 1671, ch. 6; 1694,
ch. 11; Land H; A. 214. But it appears, that the provincial legis-
lation of Maryland at a very early period made provision for quiet-
ing possessions and establishing the manner of conveying lands by
deed acknowledged and recorded; 1603, ch. 7; and prescribed that
form of private acknowledgment of conveyances of real estate and
relinquishment of dower from feme covert, 1674, ch. 2, s. 5; 1692,
ch. 30, s. 5; 1C99, ch. 42, s. 6, which has been re-enacted and con-
tinued in force from that time forward by the now existing law.
1715, ch. 47; Rhea v. Rhenner, 1 Peters, 105. Since the passage
of which law the method of conveyance by fine has been disused,
and indeed may be now considered as having sank into total
oblivion. Hammond's Lessee v. Brice, 1 H. & HcH. 323: Kilt. Rep.
146. (k)
*The acknowledgment of a feme covert to a deed, as pre-

231 scribed by the Act of Assembly, it is obvious, was intro-

(k) The recording of deeds and conveyances of land in Maryland may, at
first view, seem to have been intended altogether and exclusively for the
benefit of landholders; but the Lord Proprietary had also a considerable
interest in it; because by the tenure on which he granted his lands, he re-
served to himself a small annual quit rent, and a fine for every alienation;
and the recording of deeds and wills afforded the means of ascertaining and
collecting that branch of his revenue.— Land H. A. 233, 244. 239, 266, Land
Office Records, Journal of the Board of Revenue. The first General Assembly
of the Republic resorted to the same sources of information for the purpose
of correctly taxing real estate, by directing, that the then late receivers of
the quit rents for each county should make out lists, from their last debt-
books, of the names and quantity of acres of every tract of land within the
county, and to whom the same belonged or ought to be charged, and to
deliver such lists to the commissioners of the tax for the county.—February,
1777, ch. 21, s. 22. Since then the Acts which have been passed for the as-
sessment of taxes upon property have required the register of the land
office, and the clerks of Courts, by whom deeds are required to be recorded,
to furnish the commissioners of the tax with lists of alienations of lands
thus shewn by their records, in order to ascertain to whom the tax should
be charged, 1803, oh. 92, s. 37 and 38, &c.

The fines for alienation, or the casualties of the feudal law were taxes
upon the transference of land both from the dead to the living, and from
the living to the living. In ancient times they constituted, in every part of
Europe, one of the principal branches of the revenue of the crown; which,
like all such taxes, fell most heavily upon the necessitous or the poor; and,
so far as they diminished the capital value of the property so taxed, tended
to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labor.—
Smith's W. Nations, b. 5, c. 2, app. to art. 1 and 2. The fines payable to the