290 CUNNINGHAM v. BROWNING.—1 BLAND.

The Lord Proprietary's lands always yielded him a very large
proportion, and sometimes the only revenue derived from his Prov-
ince; and therefore here, as in England, the mode of obtaining
title to lands seems to have been regulated, as well with a view
to the safe collection of this branch of the revenue, as to the assur-
ing of justice and fairness to the contracting parties. Before the
establishment of the land office, here, as in England, the applicant
for a patent commenced by obtaining a warrant from the sovereign,
under his seal at arms, or the lesser seal of the Province; Land Ho.
Ass. 43, 65, 76, 98; by which, on the purchase money being paid to
the treasurer, Land Ho. Ass. 54, 56. 62, 128. the surveyor was
authorized to lay out the land as required; Land Ho. Ass. 75; and
upon a certificate of the survey being returned to the Chancery
office, the secretary, who was then the recording officer of the
Court of Chaucery , Land Ho. Ass. 43, 05, if he approved of the
proceedings, made out the patent grant, Land. Ho. Ass. 41, 60, 82,
which was to be finally passed upon and authenticated by the Chan-
cellor. Land Ho. Ass. 126.

*It must be recollected, however, that the Lord Proprie-
310 tary, like the King of England, had the power, and actually
did make a multitude of leases for years of his lands, without the
solemnity of a patent grant under the great seal. These leases
were rarely or never at any time signed or sealed by the Chan-
cellor, nor could he in any way check or control the making of them,
as he might the passing of a patent giant for an estate of inheri-
tance when it came for the great seal, if a caveat should be then
fiied; and therefore it need only to be observed here, that none of
the proceedings which may be met with in our records to those
Proprietary leases, can have any relation to the matter now under
consideration. Land Ho. Ass. 219.

But after the establishment of the land office, the mode of pro-
ceedings to obtain a legal estate of inheritance in lands, from the
Proprietary, was somewhat differently, and much better regulated.
The Constitution of the Republic directed that there should be
two registers of the land office appointed, one for the Western, and
the other for the Eastern Shore. Constitution, Art. 51. And
these land offices were organized accordingly by a re-establish-
ment of the connexion which had formerly subsisted between the
Court of Chancery and the land office, and an adoption of all the
regulations and the law by which that office had been formerly-
governed, in so far as they were consistent with the new frame of
government. Land Ho. Ass. 300, 305, 307; November, 1781, ch.
20, s. 12.

There were under the Proprietary's government, and still are,
five different modes of beginning to obtain a title to lands, or, in
other words, five several kinds of warrants, all of which are now
issued by the register under his signature and the seal of his office,.