310 CUNNINGHAM v, BROWNING.

It must be recollected, however, that the lord proprietary, like
king of England, had the power, and actually did make a
multitude of leases for years of his lands, without the solemnity of
a patent grant under the great seal. These leases were rarely or
never at any time signed or sealed by the Chancellor, nor could he
in any way check or control the making of them, as he might the
passing of a patent grant for an estate of inheritance when it came
for the great seal, if a caveat should be then filed; and therefore
it need only to be observed here, that none of the proceedings
which may be met with in our records, in regard to those pro-
prietary leases, can have any relation to the matter now under
consideration.(r)

But after the establishment of the Land Office, the mode of
proceeding to obtain a legal estate of inheritance in lands, from the
proprietary, was somewhat differently, and much better regulated.
The Constitution of the Republic directed that there should be two
registers of the Land Office appointed, one for the Western, and
the other for the Eastern Shore.(s) And these Land Offices were
organized accordingly by a re-establishment of the connexion which
had formerly subsisted between the Court of Chancery and the
Land Office, and an adoption of all the regulations and the law by
which that office had been formerly governed, in so far as they were
consistent with the new frame of government, (t)

There were under the proprietary's government, and still are,
five different modes of beginning to obtain a title to lands; or, in
other words, five several kinds of warrants, all of which are now
issued by the register under his signature and the seal of his office,(u)
by which an applicant may obtain a patent for the land he proposes
to purchase. If it be his object, in general, to obtain a certain
quantity of vacant land, any where, without regard to any particular
space, or tract, then, on paying one-half of the stipulated price to
the treasurer, he gets from him a titling ;(v) upon which the register
of the Land Office gives him a common warrant, directed to the
surveyor, commanding him to lay out the specified quantity of land
as required. But if required by the applicant, on presenting his
titling, the register will insert a particular description of the land
aimed at in the warrant itself; which specification gives to it the
denomination of a special warrant ;(w) or the register may, with-

(r) Land Ho. Ass. 219— (s) Constition, art 51-(t) Land Ho Ass. 300, 305,
307; November, 1781, ch. 20,8.12.—(u) Land Ho. Ass. 466.—(v) Land Ho. Ass.
232, 261, 275, 232— (w) Land Ho. Ass. 318, 367, 470.