as they extend, evidence in the highest degree respectable and authentic, and as the circumstances under which they were taken will, no doubt, be properly considered, if any allowance upon that account should appear necessary, I have conceived that I could not, consistent with my professed design, decline to give them a place in this publication, or present them in any other than their original form. The testimony which they exhibit, will be found to quadrate generally with what I have on different occasions advanced, on the points to which it refers. It is to be regretted that the enquiry was not more general, and that the answers are in so many instances neutralized, or perplexed, by the form of the questions proposed by the respective counsel. If these answers shew that there was something remaining to be known, even by the the two persons the best informed in land affairs, it will no way impeach their intelligence or industry. The greater part of the information which I have been enabled to obtain concerning the ancient practice has been derived from records and documents not in the land office, but chiefly in the council chamber, where, for any purpose but that which I had in view, no person would have thought of searching for the practice of the land office. It is not my design, however, by seeming to apologize for this testimony, to depreciate it. I consider it as a valuable document, or I should not have produced it, being in reality rather straitened for room than for matter to complete my undertaking: I here present it, as copied from the original papers, observing only that I have taken the liberty of supplying a few negligences in punctuation &c. scarcely to be avoided in an original and hasty manuscript, and which might in some places render the sense obscure. I have also taken a liberty in point of arrangement, by placing the answers under the questions to which they respectively apply, instead of giving the latter in immediate succession, and then the answers collectively, as they are for the most part, though not throughout, found in the original papers. This method I pursued for my own convenience in examining the testimony, and I have thought it the most eligible for publication. In substance the whole is faithfully transcribed. Testimony of Alexr. C. Hanson, chancellor, and John Callahan, register of the Land-office, concerning the rules and practice of the Land-office: given before the general court in the case of Hammond and others vs Norris¾1803. ¾¾ PLAINTIFF'S QUESTIONS TO THE CHANCELLOR, WITH HIS ANSWERS.     1st Question. Do you know of any usage or practice not in writing, that prevail in the land office, except such as you