CUNNINGHAM v, BROWNING.

side of the Court of Chancery of Maryland, and was evidently
considered as corresponding, in almost all respects, to the Petty
Bag, or enrollment office of the English Court of Chancery. For,
in all the proceedings in chancery, in relation to the repeal of
letters patent for land by scire facias, and to the business and
records of the Land Office, the court is always specially designated
as " The Chancery Court of Records;"(j) for the express purpose,
as it appears, of distinguishing its common law jurisdiction, in
relation to patent grants for lands, in which respect it was, by
analogy to the English system, deemed a court of record, from its
jurisdiction as a mere court of equity, in which capacity, according
to the English law, it was not a court of record.(k) The expres-
sion, " the Chancery Court of Records," answered very well at the
time, and may still serve, with a recollection of the English law to
which it refers, as a sufficiently apt and clear designation of the
distinction between the two sides of the Court of Chancery, between
the two capacities of common law and equity in which it acts; but
at present, the Court of Chancery of Maryland must be considered
as in all respects a court of record; since all its proceedings, as
well in equity as at common law, are recorded; and it has all the
powers incident to the jurisdiction of such courts of record.

The lord proprietary's lands always yielded him a very large
proportion, and sometimes the only revenue he derived from his
Province; and therefore here, as in England, the mode of obtaining
titles to lands seems to have been regulated, as well with a view to
the safe collection of this branch of the revenue, as to the assuring
of justice and fairness to the contracting parties. Before the
establishment of the Land Office, here, as in England, the applicant
for a patent commenced by obtaining a warrant from the sovereign,
under his seal at arms, or the Lesser Seal of the Province ;(l) by
which, on the purchase money being paid to the treasurer,(m) the
surveyor was authorized to lay out the land as required ;(n) and
upon a certificate of the survey-being returned to the Chancery
Office, the secretary, who was then the recording officer of the
Court of Chancery,(o) if he approved of the proceedings, made
out the patent grant,(p) which was to be finally passed upon and
authenticated by the Chancellor.(q)

(/) Land Ho. Ass. 114, 122, 178, 181.—(k) Com. Dig. tit. Chancery C. 1 & 2;
2 Mad. Chan. 712.—(1) Land Ho. Ass. 48, 65, 76, 98.—(m) Land Ho. Ass. 54, 56,
62, 128.—(n) Land Ho. Ass. 75.—(o) Land Ho. Ass. 43, 65.—(p) Land Ho. Ass.
41, 66, 82.—(q) Land Ho. Ass. 126.