CUNNINGHAM v. BROWNING.—1 BLAND. 289

the Great Seal of the Province, whose duty it should be here, as
was the duty of the similar officer in England, to pass upon and
authenticate all patent grants for lands. Land Ho. Ass. 64. But
although by a commission, dated on the 15th of April, 1637, the
first Governor was constituted "Chancellor, Chief Justice, and
Chief Magistrate within the Province, until officers and ministers of
justice should be appointed;" 1 Boz. Hix. Mary. 292; Land Ho. Ass.
64; yet grants for lands to the first settlers were issued and authenti-
cated under the hand and seal of the Governor alone; and it was
not until about the year 1644, that patent grants wrere authen-
ticated by the Chancellor under the Great Seal of the Province,
according to the English mode of making out such deeds. Land
Records, lib. No. 1, folio 195. From that time, however, to the
present, patent grants have been made out and authenticated
according to the form now in use.

The increase in population, and the spreading out of the settle-
ment of the country, so multiplied the demands for the Proprie-
tary's lands, that in the year 1680, for the greater regularity and
despatch of business in that respect, a land office was established;
in which it was directed, that authentic records of all proceedings
in relation to the sale and granting of lands should be made and
kept, Land Ho. Ass. 108, 232, 283, certified copies of which, as of any
other records, are held to be legal evidence. Thornton v. Edwards,
1 H. & McH. 158. This office was appended to the common law
*side of the Court of Chancerj of Maryland, and was evi- 309t
dently considered as corresponding, in almost all respects,
to the Petty Bag, or enrollment office of the English Court of
Chancery. For, in all the proceedings in Chancery, in relation to
the repeal of letters patent for land by scire facias, and to the busi-
ness and records of the land office, the Court is always specially
designated as "The Chancery Court of Records,'' Land Ho. Ass.
114, 122, 178, 181; for the express purpose, as it appears, of dis-
tinguishing its common law jurisdiction, in relation to patent
grants for lands, in which respect it was, by analogy to the Eng-
lish system, deemed a Court of record, from its jurisdiction as a
mere Court of equity, in which capacity, according to the English
law, it was not a Court of record. Com. Dig. tit. Chancery, G. 1
and 2; 2 Mad. Chan. 712. The expression, " the Chancery Court
of Records," answered very well at the time, and may still serve,
with a recollection of the English law to which it refers, as a suffi-
ciently apt and clear designation of the distinction between the
two sides of the Court of Chancery, between the two capacities of
common law and equity in which it acts; but at present, the Court
of Chancery of Maryland must be considered as in all respects a
Court of record; since all its proceedings, as well in equity as at
common law, are recorded; and it has all the powers incident to
the jurisdiction of such Courts of record.
19 1 B.