452 BALTIMORE r. McKIM.—3 BLAND.

prietary, like the king, might dispense with all rule, and give a
patent at his pleasure; or if, on the other hand, a patent were
allowed to issue; yet the patentee could only take subject to all
prior claims, incumbrances and equities. Therefore it could have
answered no good purpose to allow an appeal from any decision of
the Chancellor as Judge of the Land Office. Ex parte Beck, 1 Bro.
C. C. 578; Ex parte O'Reily, I Ves. Jun. 112; Ex parte Koops, 6
Ves. 599; Ex parte Fox, 1 Ves. & Bea. 67.

Under the Proprietary government, the land office was always
open, as the market, where any part of the vacant lands of the
Province might be purchased. But to this rule there were excep-
tions. *The Lord Proprietary, from time to time, with-
460 drew large bodies of his lands from this market, which he
declared should not be sold there until his farther pleasure was
made known; aud therefore to no part of such tracts, called re
serves, could any title be acquired from the land office. Land Ho.
Assis. 92; Smith v. The State, 2 H. & McH. 246. But these reserva-
tions were only restrictions upon the ordinary mode of selling; for
the Lord Proprietarv sold, leased, or gave away these reserves as
well as other parts of his territory at his pleasure; of which there
are a multitude of instances to be found among the records of the
land office. Aud besides such regular and irregular grants, ema-
nating from the land office, or direct from the Lord Proprietary
himself, the Legislature, with his consent, appropriated to, or
authorized the acquisition of land by individuals in various other
peculiar modes. 1696, ch. 24, s. 7.

By the Revolution all lands which then belonged to the Lord
Proprietary became absolutely vested in the State, and weie so
held for the public benefit; not however, as under the government
of the Province, as the estate and for the private emolument of an

margin of the record book, where the special warrant aforesaid is recorded,
setting forth the insufficiency and invalidity of the special warrant and re-
turn aforesaid.

LLOYD, Judge, 39th January, 1721.—The arguments and allegations of both
parties being fully heard and duly considered, it is adjudged, pronounced
and declared, that the reasons offered by the petitioner in maintenance of a
caveat heretofore entered in the land office, at the making out letters patent
in the name of Vincent Hemsley, for the land in dispute, are good and suffi-
cient, according to the course and practice of the land office to bar the said
Vincent Hemsley from any further proceedings thereon; and it is likewise
declared, that the certificate and resurvey of two hundred and thirty acres
of land aforesaid, part of Coursey upon Wye, already returned into his
lordship's land office by Vincent Hemsley, aforesaid, be held and deemed to
be null and void, as being found to lie within the bounds of a more ancient
survey. And that an entry hereof be made in the margin of the record
book where the warrant of such resurvey is recorded.—Land Records, lib.
E. J. No. 1, fol. 1.