£30 HANNAH iL CHASE'S CASE.

they had been sole, which were afterwards ratified and con-
firmed, (f) But it appears, that the provincial legislature of
Maryland at a very early period made provision for quieting pos-
sessions and establishing the manner of conveying lands by deed
acknowledged and recorded ;(g) and ^prescribed that form of pri-
vate acknowledgment of conveyances of real estate and relin-
quishment of dower from femes covert,(h) *which has been re-
enacted and continued in force from that time forward by the
now existing law.(i) Since the passage of which law the method
of conveyance by fine has been disused, and indeed may be now
considered as having sunk into total oblivion, (j)

(f) 1671, en. 6; 1694, ch. 11;" Land H. A. 214.—(g) 1663, ch. 7.—(h) 1674,
ch. 2, 8. 5; 1692, ch. 30, s. 5; 1699, ch. 42, s. 6.—(i) 1715, ch. 47. Rhea v. Rhenner,
1 Peters, 105.-—(j) Hammond's Lessee v. Brice, 1 H. & McH. 323; Kilt. Rep. 146.

The recording of deeds and conveyances of land in Maryland may, at first view,
teem to have been intended altogether and exclusively for the benefit of landholders;
but the lord proprietary had also a considerable interest in it; because by the
tenure on which he granted his lands, he reserved to himself a small annual quit
rent, and a fine for every alienation; and the recording of deeds and wills afforded
the means of ascertaining and collecting that branch of his revenue.—Land H. Jl.
233, 244, 259, 266. Land Office Records, Journal of the Board of Revenue. The
first General Assembly of the Republic resorted to the same sources of information
for the purpose of correctly taxing real estate, by directing, that the then late
receivers of the quit rents for each county should make out lists, from their last debt-
books, of the names and quantity of acres of every tract of land within the county,
and to whom the same belonged or ought to be charged, and to deliver such lists to
the commissioners of the tax for the county.—February, 1777, ch. 21, s. 22. Since
then the acts which have been passed for the assessment of taxes upon property
have required the register of the land office, and the clerks of courts, by whom deeds
are required to be recorded, to furnish the commissioners of the tax with lists of
alienations of lands thus shewn by their records, in order to ascertain to whom the
tax should be charged, 1803, ch. 92, s. 37 & 33, &c.

The fines for alienation, or the casualties of the feudal law were taxes upon the
transference of land both from the dead to the living, and from the living to the liv-
ing. In ancient times they constituted, in every part of Europe, one of the princi-
pal branches of the revenue of the crown; which, like all such taxes, fell most
heavily upon the necessitous or the poor; and, so far as they diminished the capital
value of the property so taxed, tended to diminish the funds destined for the mainte-
nance of productive labour.—Smith's W. Nations, b. 5, c. 2, app. to art. 1 # 2. The
fines payable to the lord proprietary on every such transfer here also, as it appears,
constituted a considerable portion of his revenue.—Cassell v. Carroll, 11 Wheat. 134,

The registration of mortgages, and in general of all rights upon immovable pro-
perty, says an enlightened philosopher, as it gives great security to both creditors
and purchasers, is extremely advantageous to the public.—Smith's W. Nations, b. 5,
c. 2, app. to art, 1 # 2, Yet an eminent English lawyer has delivered it as his settled
conviction, that a general registry, throughout England, would entail a great and cer-
tain expense on property for a very uncertain benefit. Because a general registry
wantonly exposes the concerns of all mankind; and by the negligence of an agerjt, a