BALTIMORE v. McKIM.—3 BLAND. 457

atter the claimant's legal title has been perfected; and that the
pretensions of the caveator cannot be prejudiced, to permit the

his special warrants, and there is a sufficient quantity of land surveyed and
unpatented to satisfy both their claims

Therefore, we are of opinion, that as Mr Bladen has only as yet obtained
patents for 1 696 acres that patents do issue to him for 2,316 acres more he
paving the arrearages of rent, which com pleats his quantity of 4,012 acres,
that being the whole for which he has paid caution

We are also of opinion, that patents do issue to Doctor David Rosa, of
Prince George's County, upon the certificates which have been or shall be
returned into his lordship's land office by virtue of the special warrants ob-
tained by him on the 16th day of Januaiy, 1761, amounting, in the whole,
to 2,254 acres, he having paid caution for that quantity, unless Mr Bladen,
or his attorney shall produce an instruction from his late lordship to sup
port so unusual a proceeding All which is humbly submitted to your Ex-
cellency s, superior judgment by your Excellency s humble servants —B
Calvert G Stewart, 11th November 1762

SHARPE, C , 13th December, 1765 —From the foregoing statement, the pro-
ceedings on the part of Governor Bladen seems to be very much out of the
common course, which, I conceive, no less than the express authority of,
and a direction from the late Lord Proprietary could dispense with, either
in Mr Bladen or any other person's case and had there been such particu-
lar authority from his lordship either to the then Judges of the land office,
his lordships agents, or to the Governor himself, it ought doubtless to have
been entered at large or at least noticed by some entry on record, to the
end, that it might always have appeared, that his lordship who alone could
do it, had dispensed with the usual course of proceeding in the case of Mr.
Bladen and that the Judges had sufficient warrant for their justification m
proceeding after such a manner But there being, by your account, no
such special authority from his lordship to be found in the land office, which
is the proper repository for every thing relating to his lordship's grants of
lands, nor even the least hint appearing among the records that any such
order from his lordship in favor of Mr Bladen ever existed, you could not,
I apprehend, presume, there was any such order

The affair hitherto being thus circumstanced, and the several surveys for
Mr Bladen having been made on such irregular and unusual warrants, I
should have thought, that even if no person had applied for warrants to
affect the lands, you would have acted justifiably, had you declined issuing
any patents at all on certificates returned in pursuance of such irregular
warrants till you could have laid the whole affair before his lordship, and
have received his instruction thereupon But since Doctor Ross has applied
for and obtained warrants to affect several of the tracts which, according to
your statement, had been surveyed for Mr Bladen, the principal thing now
to be considered, seems to be whether Doctor Ross has been regular in his
applications and whatever may be done with regard to the rest of the
lands, whether he has a right to patents for the 2,254 acres for which he ob-
tained warrants

And with regard to the regularity of Doctor Ross application to the office
on the present occasion, such special warrants as he obtained, seem to me to
have been the proper warrants for, as the lands in question had been sur-
veyed by virtue of Mr Bladen s warrants directed by the office to the sur-
veyor of the county, and a minute made m the office of the certificates