312 CUNNINGHAM v, BROWNING.

tion of surveyors \(f) a certificate of which was formerly returned
to the Land Office, but now to the examiner-general,(g) to be
by him critically reviewed; and if upon such examination, it
is found to be erroneous, it is sent back to the surveyor for
correction; after which it must be lodged in the Land Office within
eighteen months from the date of the warrant on which it was
made, or it will be deemed void ;(h) and if ordered by the Chan-
cellor to be corrected, it must be returned, together with the erro-
neous certificate, within nine months from the date of the order,
otherwise it can never be received, (i) If the certificate is approved
by the examiner-general, it is then taken to the treasurer, who,
upon payment of the whole amount of the purchase money, endorses
upon it a receipt, specifying that it has been fully compounded
on;(j) after which the certificate is received into the Land Office,
and the day of its being so returned endorsed thereon as being
then ready for a patent, if not opposed by a caveat, (k)

The dealing out of the vacant lands, which had never before been
held in separate parcels, not merely as in England, at the time of,
the Norman conquest, or as after a rebellion in Ireland, among a
few of the monarch's favourites ;(1) but of the whole territory of the
State, to an entirely new set of emigrants, who undertook to reduce
the wllderness to cultivation, was then a proceeding of the most
novel and interesting character.(m) The mode of granting lands
by the king naturally suggested itself to the viceroy of Maryland
as the best; and, as has been shewn, was accordingly as closely
followed as the nature of things would permit. But when the Land
Office was established, the business of disposing of the vacant
lands had become, and was then rapidly swelling to a magnitude,
that engrossed a large share of the attention of the government.

It was only by means of this department of the Chancery, called
the £and Office, that a large proportion of the revenue derived
from the sale of vacant, confiscated, or escheated lands, could for-
merly, or can now be ascertained; and consequently in that point
of view, it must have been formerly regarded as a very important
revenue office,(n) as it continues even yet to be productive. But
contemplated in another point of view, it is evident, that it must

(/) Land Ho. Ass. 62, 65, 485.—(g) 1795, ch. 83, s. 7.—(A) Land Ho. Ass. 273,
S25,466.—(t) Land Ho. Ass. 466.—( j) Land Ho. Ass. 256,260, 261, 275, 319, S22.
(fe) November, 1781, ch. 20, s. 3 & 6; Digges v. Beale, I H» & McH. 67; Lord
Proprietary v, Jeniags, 1 H. It McH. 140.—(I) Godw. Com. Eng. b. 4, c. 27.
(m) Land Ho. Ass. 299n) Land Ho. Ass. 302.