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464 BALTIMORE v.. McKIM.
under the Proprietary Government, If the patent should have
been improperly refused by the Chancellor, or because it could not
Therefore, we are of opinion, that as Mr. Bladen has only as yet obtained patents
for 1,696 acres, that patents do issue to him for 2,316 acres more, he paying the
arrearages of rent, which compleats his quantity of 4,012 acres, that being the whole
for which he has paid caution.
We are also of opinion, that patents do issue to Doctor David Ross, of Prince
Georges county, upon the certificates which have been or shall be returned into his
Lordship's Land Office by virtue of the special warrants obtained by him on the 16th
day of January, 1761, amounting, in the whole, to 2,254 acres, he having paid cau-
tion for that quantity, unless Mr. Bladen, or his Attorney shall produce an instruc-
tion from his late Lordship to support so unusual a proceeding: All which is humbly
submitted to your Excellency's superior judgment, by your Excellency's humble
servants.—B. Calvert, G. Stewart,11th November, 1762.
13th December, 1765.—SHARPE, Chancellor.—From the foregoing statement, the
proceedings on the part of Governor Bladen seems to be very much out of the
common course; which, I conceive, no less than the express authority of, and a
direction from the late Lord Proprietary could dispense with, either in Mr. Bladen's
or any other person's case; and had there been such particular authority from his
Lordship, either to the then Judges of the Land Office, his Lordship's agents, or to
the Governor himself, it ought doubtless to have been entered at large, or at least
noticed by some entry on record, to the end, that it might always have appeared,
that his Lordship, who alone could do it, had dispensed with the usual course of pro-
ceeding in the case of Mr. Bladen; and that the judges had sufficient warrant for
their justification in proceeding after such a manner. But there being, by your ac-
count, no such special authority from his Lordship to be found in the Land Office,
which is the proper repository for every thing relating to his Lordship's grants of
lauds, nor even the least hint appearing among the records that any such order from
his Lordship in favour of Mr. Bladen ever existed, you could not, I apprehend,
presume there was any such order.
The affair hitherto being thus circumstanced, and the several surveys for Mr.
Bladen having been made on such irregular and unusual warrants, I should have
thought, that even if no person had applied for warrants to affect the lands, you
would have acted justifiably, had you declined issuing any patents at all on certifi-
cates returned in pursuance of such irregular warrants till you could have laid the
whole affair before his Lordship, and have received his instruction thereupon. But
since Doctor Ross has applied for and obtained warrants to affect several of the tracts
which, according to your statement, had been surveyed for Mr. Bladen, the principal
thing, now to be considered, seems to be whether Doctor Ross has been regular in
his applications; and, whatever may be done with regard to the rest of the lands,
whether he has a right to patents for the 2,254 acres for which he obtained warrants.
And with regard to the regularity of Doctor Ross* application to the office on the
present occasion; such special warrants as he obtained, seem to me to have been the
proper warrants; for, as the lands in question had been surveyed by virtue of Mr.
Bladen's warrants directed by the office to the Surveyor of the county, and a minute
made in the office of the certificates having been returned, they could not, I appre-
hend, have been afterwards affected by a common warrant; and, by what you say in
the foregoing statement, no warrant under the proclamation to affect them, by rea-
son, that no certificates on Mr. Bladen's warrant were to be found in the office; and,
if, under these circumstances, such special warrants as were granted to Doctor Ross
would not affect the lands, it seems to me, that a person, for whom land hath once
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