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CHAPTER V.
Pages 31-42.
The articles being duly ratified, Mr. Worsley discontinued the former surveys, and discharged the persons employed upon them. Dr. Petty completed his securities, and warrants were issued:
- 1st. For men to show the meres.
2nd. For abstracts or lists of the lands to be surveyed.
3rd. For access to such records or surveys as might be of use.
4th. To appoint a committee of officers to consider how the said work might be begun, and proceeded upon, as to the final subdivision.
The second of these was obviously the first to be executed in order of time. The warrant of the council on the subject is dated 20th December, even before the articles were formally ratified. The commissioners of civil survey were appointed under the commission from the council of state of June, 1653, confirmed by the Act of 26th September following, for the purpose of ascertaining what lands were forfeited, and what extent of land in each case, with a view to the transplantation into Connaught, and the setting out of the forfeited lands among the adventurers and soldiers.
The duties of these commissioners, and the classes of claimants called adventurers, soldiers, officers, &c., are so clearly described by Mr. Hardiman, in the Appendix to the Fifteenth Report of the Record Commission, that it is only necessary to refer to that able paper for full elucidation.[1]
In the recommendation of the committee under which Mr. Worsley had begun to act (see page 4), it was recommended, that the surveyors should ascertain the forfeitures themselves, by aid of juries, in the several counties. It is probable that, at that time, the commission of civil survey was but little advanced, and it will be seen that the delay and uncertainty with which the preliminary information was furnished to Dr. Petty, operated prejudicially to his labours. The time for completing the survey ought, therefore, in strictness, to have dated, in each locality, from the delivery to Dr. Petty, of the lists, or terriers of lands to be surveyed. As this delay was not foreseen, and therefore not provided for in the articles of agreement, he was exposed to difficulties he had no adequate means of meeting. In order to a clear understanding of the civil survey, and gross surrounds, which were to be executed under the original commission, an example of the instructions issued to the persons employed in them is given in the Appendix.
The next warrant, the execution of which was necessary, was, to provide persons to show on the ground the meres and bounds of the lands contained in the return of the civil survey. These persons ought, if possible, to have been nominated by the civil survey commissioners, for the mutual security of the Commonwealth and of Dr. Petty, that the lands surveyed were those described by the Commissioners. This may have been impracticable, and the surveyors,
- ↑ See the online version of the report by Hardiman. (Wikisource ed.)
