448 BALTIMORE v. MoKiM.—3 BLAND.

patent, for them to shew, that the State had previously parted
with its right of soil to any one else; or that this ground was not
the subject of a grant from the land office. To shew which they
urged, that this ground was an extension, not of any land belong-
ing to John Smith, or those claiming under him, but of a part of
Gay street; and consequently belonged as a rightful incident to
the patentee of Cole's Harbor, or those claiming under him; who
alone were the owners of the ground over which Gay street passed,
and the incidents and appurtenants thereto. Or, if, indeed, the
right of soil in this, strip of land had not accrued to and vested in
those holding under the patent for Cole's Harbor, as a legal inci-
dent of their title; yet, that the ground in question, in its present
condition, charged as it was with a public use, was not the proper
subject of a grant from the land office.

The land office has always been, as it now is, the general market
in which all public lands have been offered for sale; and into
which any one capable of holding real estate might come and pur
chase according to the prescribed rules and terms of sale. This
office, so peculiar in its nature, evidently originated from the cir-
cumstance of the right of soil of the whole country having been
vested exclusively in the Lord Proprietary as a part of his private
estate; and from the whole territory being at that time vacant,
and held by tribes of savages in their national capacities, and not
as * property belonging to individuals in separate parcels.
456 Gifford v. Lord Yarborough, 15 Com. Laic Rep. 405. The
charter of Maryland not only vested the right of soil in the Lord
Proprietary, but it also clothed him with certain political and regal
powers within his Province; and hence, in establishing a land
office, and laying down rules for the sale of the great body of his
real estate, he followed, in many respects, the forms which had
been adopted in England for the purpose of preventing fraud and
imposition in obtaining grants of property from the king; and all
grants of land here were accordingly required to pass under the
supervision of the Chancellor; and to be attested by the great seal
of which he was the keeper. If the rules of the office were com-
plied with, and the purchase money paid, a grant for the land wras
issued as of course, otherwise not. Cunningham v. Browning, 1
Bland, 299. Among the earliest Acts of the Provincial Legisla-
ture was one, which declared it to be illegal for any individual to
purchase lands of the Indians to the prejudice of the rights of the
Lord Proprietary. 1649, ch. 3; 1798, ch. 82, s. 7; 1802, ch. 45;
1816, ch. 136.

The mode of proceeding for the purpose of contesting the right
to a patent by a caveat, being interposed against its issuing, was
substantially the same here as in England. Cunningham v. Brown-