BINNEY'S CASE. 1S1

^when taken in connexion with the known and established nature of
the subject of which that language treats.

Private acts of assembly are, in a great variety of cases, and in
many respects, regarded as mere contracts, binding alone on those
who apply for and are parties to them. As to such acts, and
ancient charters, there are some kinds of doubts and obscurities
which may be removed and dispelled by extrinsic evidence. Where
however the terms of such an enactment are not in themselves
doubtful, no such evidence can be introduced, since that would be
not to obviate but to create doubts, (d) In regard to such private
acts the petition of the applicant, and the votes and proceedings of
the two houses of the General Assembly may, perhaps, be received
as evidence affecting the rights of the parties, and guiding the con-
struction of such private legislative enactments, (e) But in all

(d) Attorney-General v. Parker, 3 Atk. 576; Rex v. Varlo, Cowp. 248; Withnell
v. Gratham, 6 T. R. 388; 5 Cruise Dig. tit. 33.

(e) O'NEALE'S CASE.—On the 20th day of December, 1794, the following reso-
lution was propounded in the House of Delegates respecting Lawrence O'Neale,then
a delegate from Montgomery county.

'Whereas, John Hamilton, of Prince George's county, did petition this General
Assembly for an act to authorise the issuing of a patent on a survey made for him of
a tract of land, in Prince George's county, called Hamilton's Purchase, containing
two hundred and forty-eight and a half acres of land, stating that the record of the
original patent thereof had been lost; and whereas, by a certificate exhibited with
the said petition, signed by the register of the land office, it appeared by an entry
made in the margin of the record of the warrant on which the said survey was made,
that a patent had issued; but that there was no record of the patent or certificate
remaining in the land office; and whereas, Lawrence O'Neale, Esquire, a member
of this house, after the exhibition of the said petition, and the reading and reference
thereof to a committee for consideration, did make application to the register of the
land office for a warrant of proclamation to affect the land included in the said sur-
vey; and this General Assembly being of opinion, that such conduct is a violation
of the rights of the people of this state, and the duty of a representative,

Resolved, That the said Lawrence O'Neale be expelled, and he is hereby expelled
from this house; and his seat as a delegate for Montgomery county declared to be,
and it is hereby vacated.

Ordered, That the said resolution have a second reading to-morrow, that the said
Lawrence O'Neale be furnished with a copy thereof, and that he have permission to
be heard by counsel at the bar of the house; and that summonses issue for John
Callahan and Henry Whitcraft, to appear at the bar of the house on to-morrow.

On the next day the house took into consideration the resolution respecting Law-
rence O'Neale, agreeably to the order of the day; and, after hearing Mr. Pinckney
at the bar of the house in behalf of the said Lawrence O'Neale, the question was put,
that the house assent to the said resolution.—Yeas 29, nays 34. So it was deter-
mined in the negative.

On motion, the question was put, That this house do highly disapprove of the
conduct of Lawrence O'Neale, Esquire, as a member of this house, in entering an