220 CAMPBELL'S CASE.—2 BLAND.

allowed the further time of ten years to accomplish the object.
1809, ch. 192.

In Maryland, private Acts of Assembly have been common, from
the earliest period of the Proprietary government, 1650, ch. 18 and
19; 1663, ch. 35; 1666, ch. 1 and 8; 1669, ch. 4, down to the present
time, and it has been laid down as a general rule that all petitions
praying for such enactments must be couched in decent and re-
spectful terms. Votes and Proc. Ho. Del. 7 and 16 January, 1803;
and 5 and 7 January, 1804. It appears that under the Provincial
government, and even since the Revolution, certain fees were, here
as in England, paid by the applicants for such Acts to the officers
of the General Assembly by whom they were passed. 1704, ch.
74. (m) But the allowance of fees for the passage of any such laws
has, long since, been discontinued. It also appears, that although
it has been deemed necessary to adhere closely to the express pro-
visions of all such special enactments, in so far as they confer any
new power or jurisdiction; yet that here as in England, they have,
in many respects, been construed and executed as mere convey-
ances, binding only upon those who are parties or privy to their
passage. 1794, ch. 45; Beall v. Harwood, 2 H. & J. 168; Partridge
v. Dorsey, 3 H. & J. 307, note, and 322. It is certain, that in so
far as the provisions of any private Act are confined within the
constitutional competency of the General Assembly, they must be
considered as binding and effectual as those of any constitutional
public law. And it may be admitted, that the General Assembly
has the power, in many cases, to lend its aid to an agreement be-
tween individuals, so as to render it effectual, when any merely
public reason or positive rule of law stands in the way, as to enable
a body politic, or particular persons to levy contributions to a cer-
tain extent for some special purpose connected with the public
good; The King v. Toms, 1 Doug. 406; Perchard v. Heywood, 8 T. R.
472; or it may sanction an encroachment which had been made
upon a public right, through misapprehension, as by allowing an
individual to continue to hold as his own a part of a street upon
which, by mistake, he had erected his * house, 1807, ch. 76
235 and 119; or the General Assembly may, without prejudice,
and for beneficial purposes, lend its aid to supply defects in an
agreement which could not be supplied by any judicial proceeding
without the help of such an enactment, although there existed suf-

(m) It appears from the report of a committee appointed at November
Session, 1789, to tax the costs and expenses which had accrued on the peti-
tion of Benjamin Mackall, and others against the petition, exhibited on
behalf of the Reverend Francis Lander, that those costs and expenses were
made up of the per diems, itinerant charges, and ferriages of the parties and
witnesses; and amounted to £197 0s. 0d. current money of that time, as it
is presumed. The report of the committee was not agreed to.—Votes and
Proc. Ho. Del. 29 December, 1779.