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BALTIMORE v. McKIM. 450
refused, on account of the rules of the office not having been com-
plied with, still the Lord Proprietary, like the king, might dispense
with all rule, and give a patent at his pleasure; or if, on the other
hand, a patent were allowed to issue; yet the patentee could only
take subject to all prior claims, incumbrances and equities.
Therefore it could have answered no good purpose to allow an
appeal from any decision of the Chancellor as judge of the Land
Office, (f)
Under the proprietary government, the Land Office was always
open, as the market, where any part of the vacant lands of the
province might be purchased. But to this rule there were excep-
Coursey upon Wye, the cultivated part whereof is now in dispute. And she further
asserteth, that all common warrants, at the time of the making of that survey were
qualified, and gave sufficient power to the surveyors to lay out, survey and make
returns of cultivated as well as uncultivated lands, as in the present case now in
dispute; and to prove the practice of the office at the time of laying out the tract
aforesaid, the complainant produced an original common warrant, dated the 20th of
June, 1694, and signed by Col. William Diggs and Major Nicholas Sewall, secre-
taries of this province; and eight months alter the time of making out of the com-
mon warrant for two thousand three hundred and forty-five acres unto Col. Peter
Lawyer, out of which warrant the assignment of nine hundred and twenty acres was
made unto Col. Coursey aforesaid. The complainant thereupon argued, that it had
been the ancient practice of the office to except such lands only as had been for-
merly surveyed or resurveyed for his lordship's use; but that all cultivated land of
which time, the lands, now in dispute, were subject to common warrants, as well as
clear vacant lands. She therefore prayed, on behalf of her son, a minor and legatee
of Col. William Coursey, deceased, that the special warrant for the two hundred
and thirty acres of land aforesaid, so as before by Vincent Hemsley obtained and
executed upon the cultivation of that part of the tract called Coursey upon Wye
devised unto William Coursey a minor as aforesaid, together with the certificate and
other proceedings thereon, might be declared null and void, and that an entry be
made thereof in the margin of the record book, where the special warrant aforesaid
is recorded, setting forth the insufficiency and invalidity of the special warrant and
return aforesaid.
29th January, 1721 .—LLOYD, Judge—The arguments and allegations of both par-
ties being fully heard and duly considered, it is adjudged, pronounced and declared,
that the reasons offered by the petitioner in maintenance of a caveat heretofore en-
tered in the Land Office, at the making out Letters Patent in the name of Vincent
Hemsley, for the land in dispute, are good and sufficient, according to the course and
practice of the Land Office to bar the said Vincent Hemsley from any further pro-
ceedings thereon; and it is likewise declared, that the certificate and resurvey of two
hundred and thirty acres of land aforesaid, part of Coursey upon Wye, already re-
tumid into his lordship's Land Office by Vincent Hemsley, aforesaid, be held and
deemed to be null and void, as being found to He within the bounds of a more ancient
survey. And that an entry hereof be made in the margin of the record book where
toe warrant of such resurvey is recorded.—Land Records, lib. E. J. No. 1, fol. 1.
(f} Ex parte Beck, 1 Bro. C. 0. 578; EX parte O'Reily, 1 Ves., jun., 112; Ex
parte Koops, 6 Ves. 599; Ex parte Fox, 1 Ves, & Bea. 67.
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