388 COMPTON v. SUSQUEHANNA R. R.—3 BLAND.

These provisions of this Act of incorporation are similar to those
of almost all other laws authorizing land to be taken for the
making of roads and canals; and they have been introduced into
this and all similar Acts of the Legislature, as a substitute for the
ancient writ of ad quod damnum; and therefore, so far as the
Legislature have been silent as to the mode of proceeding, or the
nature of things require it, they must be governed by the general
principles of law applicable to the proceedings under a writ of ad
quod damnum; since the object to be accomplished by both is the
same. Rex v. Inhabitants of Flecknow, 1 Bun. 465. According
to the common law the inquisition under a writ of ad quod damnum
is, in all cases, required to be taken before the property can be
entered upon, unless it should be specially dispensed with by
statute, or the grant itself; Jacob Law Dict. v. Ad Quod dam-
num; (b) but in this * instance, it is obvious, that the taking
391 of the inquisition, as a preliminary to the property's being

(b) PRESSLY'S CASE.—Charles, absolute Lord and Proprietary of the Prov-
ince of Maryland and Avalon, Lord Baron of Baltimore, &c.

To the Sheriff of St. Mary's County, greeting: we command you, that by
the oaths of twelve honest and lawful men of the county by whom the
truth of the matter may be better known, you diligently inquire if it be to
the damage of us or others, if we grant unto Col. Peter Pressly, of the
Colony of Virginia, twenty acres of land lying upon the head of St. Mary's
River, in Saint Mary's County, aforesaid, being the place where Thomas
Waughop formerly had built a water-mill upon, viz: ten acres on one Bide
of the head of said river, and ten acres on the other side thereof, together
with liberty to take, fell, cut down and carry away, either by land or water,
any wood or timber wood fit for building a mill, other than timber fit to
split into clapboards, next adjoining to the said twenty acres of land lying
on each side of the said river in the county aforesaid. And if it be to the
damage and prejudice of us, and to what damage and prejudice of others,
and of whom, and in what manner, and how; and of what value they are
by the year, according to the true value thereof now. before any further
improvement of the said twenty acres of land, and who are the present
possessors of the said twenty acres of land, and what land and tenements
remain to the said present possessors, over the said twenty acres, will suffice
to uphold their manor, viz: the sixth part of their manor allotted them by
the conditions of plantations for the demesne as before the alienation; so as
the county, by the alienation aforesaid, in default of the present possession,
more than was wont, be not charged and grieved. And the inquisition
therein openly and distinctly made to us in our Chancery under the seal
and seals of them by whom it was made, without delay, you send. Witness
ourself, at the City of Annapolis, this twenty-fourth day of October, in the
seventh year of our dominion, Annoque Domini 1722.

E. GRIFFITH, Reg. in Chan.
Maryland, st.

An inquisition indented and taken, by virtue of the writ which is here-
unto annexed, at the head of St. Mary's River, in Saint George's and Saint
Mary's hundred, in the County of Saint Mary's, by the oath of Richard For-
rest, William Coombs, Timothy Tolle, Henry Taylor, Thomas Price, William
Price, John Hilton, Clement Cheverili, John Cole, John Green, Alexander