Assembly Proceedings, 1651. 329

without any Lawful Authority deriv'd from us which so strange
an usurpation upon our rights there as we cannot easily believe
it to be true but in case the said Scarborrough or any other
should presume upon pretence of any such Commission to seat
or trade in or through any part of Our said Province without
a Lawful Authority deriv'd from us we will and require you our
said Lieu^t according to the trust we have reposed in you to use
your best endeavours to hinder him or them from so doing and

Liber M C

to Seize upon his or their Persons Boats and Goods and to pro-
ceed against him or them according to the Laws of our said
Province or in default thereof according to your best discretion
for vindication of any such wrong done to us and preservation
of our just rights there and we will and require our said
Council General Assembly and all our Officers and other the
Inhabitants of our said Province to be aiding and assisting to
you therein as occasion shall require and whereas we understand
that in the late Rebellion there One thousand Six hundred Forty
and four most of the Records of that Province being then lost or
embezzled no Inrollment remains now there of divers Pattents
of Land formerly Granted by us in that Province which may
hereafter prove very prejudicial not only to us and our heirs
but also to the Pattentecs of any such Lands & their Heirs and
Cause many suits and Controversies in case their Pattents
should by any accident be lost We therefore for Prevention
thereof do hereby will and require you our said Lieutenant to
issue out a Proclamation there requiring all Persons within a
Certain time by a certain time therein to be prefixed to produce to
our Surveyor General or his Deputy there all such Pattents from
us by which they or any of them respectively Claim any Land with-
in our said Province & that thereupon a true List thereof be de-
livered unto you and to require our Secretary there also to Give
you a List of all such Pattents of Land formerly Granted by us
are now remaining upon record whereby upon Comparing the
said Lists together you may see what Pattents are not remaining
upon record and to require all such Persons as Claim any
Land within our said Province by virtue of any such Pattents
not now remaining upon record there to Cause them to be

p. 428

inroll'd in our Secretary's Office there within some Convenient
time to be limited by you in the said Proclamation for that
Purpose and whereas we understand that Certain Indians of
several nations to wit the Mattapanians the Wicomocons the
Patuxants the Lamasconsons the Kighahnixons and the Chop-
ticons desire to put themselves under our Protection and to
have a Grant from us of a certain Tract of Land in the head
of Wicocomico River called Choptico Resolving there to live
together that they may neither injure the English nor the Eng-
lish them the said quantity of Land being as we are informed

P. 429