" all British property seized and confiscated" by the former act and were declared to be " in the full and actual seizing and " possession of all British property seized and confiscated by " the said act, without any office found, entry, or other act " to be done." They were authorised to appoint proper persons to enter into and take possession of the said property, and to preserve it from waste or destruction, or to occupy or employ it for the benefit of the public. They were to make a return to the next general assembly of all the property discovered and seized as aforesaid, with its value, according to the ensuing general valuation of property in Maryland; and, they were, in like manner declared in possession of all property within the state belonging to persons outlawed for treason, in respect to which description of property the same measures were directed.     By another act of the same session, which has been before noticed " to procure a loan, and for the sale of escheat lands" &c. a great part of the property confiscated as aforesaid was specifically pledged and set apart as a security for the intended loan; to wit the several manors in the counties of St. Mary's, Kent, Charles, Queen Anne's, Dorchester, Somerset, and Worcester, belonging to the late proprietary, and remaining unsold by the commissioners of Frederick Lord Baltimore, except Beaver Dam and Chaptico manors in Saint Mary's county;¾and also the partnership property of a number of individuals known by the name of the Principio company, except the share or interest of one person, a citizen of Maryland, named in the act, and the shares of any other of the proprietors who might also be citizens of this or any of the United States.     By the same act it was directed that the property of several persons therein named, and known, as the act expresses it, to be British subjects, within the description and intent of the act of confiscation, and also such parts of the manors of Beaver dam and Chaptico as fell under the last mentioned act, should be laid off by the commissioners, in such small parcels or lots as they should judge most convenient and advantageous, and, after due notice, sold by public auction, one fifth part of the purchase money to be paid in specie, and the remaining four fifths in the bills of credit newly emitted. The state engaged to warrant and forever secure to the purchasers and their heirs any British property sold in pursuance of the act, and to protect them in the peaceable possession thereof, and the commissioners were enjoined to offer no property for sale but what they should be fully and clearly satisfied did belong to British subjects, and had not been sold or conveyed since the first day of December 1780. The spirit of speculation which was excited by those sales