Page:Petty 1851 The Down Survey.djvu/208

 last, which is twelve moneths after the first tender of his worke, and putting the same into a way of examination, then there remaines noe other rule where uppon to ground the time of his discharge; for if your Lordshipps thinks fitt to commence it from any one of the times of the three generall assignements of lands, as either from September, 1655, or July, 1656, or November, 1656, then according to the greatest assignment, which was that of 1655, your petitioner ought long since to have been discharged; or if in July, 1656, which may bee considered as the meane beetweene two extreames, then he ought to be discharged in July next. But if your Lordshipps should make the latter distribution, vizt, that of November, to bee the rule of the whole, then, uppon the same account, your petitioner may be obliged twelve moneths even after the straggling debenturers yett unsatisfyed shall have lands assigned for their satisfaction, the time whereof is wholly uncertaine and undetermined, neither have all the debenturers yett to be satisfyed as yett appeared, whereby the time of your petitioners discharge would become wholly indefinite and impossible. Nor doth any of those three rules agree with the letter, or equity, or meaning of the contract, neither of them being grounded either uppon subdivisions literally or uppon possession legally understood, but uppon the time of the bare unvouched and alterable assignements only, which your petitioner had noe power as a surveyor to hasten or hinder, having been, as a surveyor, ready for the whole sixmonths before the first was made.

2dly. If your Lordshipps shall thinke fitt to commence the twelvemoneths of aprobation from the time the comissioners received their commission for setting out of lands, the 1st whereof was the twentieth of May, the last the 7th of July, that computation dependeth only uppon discretion allsoe, having noe ground in the contract. Neither is it reasonable your petitioner should alone bee put to bear the inconveniences of the backwardness of the commissioners for stating accompts, in making up the great books of the debt, or uppon the variouse disputes that have happened among the officers of the army about the manner of distributions which have been prosecuted by them, each for their owne particular interest; nor of the oversights, mistakes, and ignorance of all such as have had any way to doe in this business, which manifestly would be, in case your petitioners twelve moneths of approbation should bee from the date of those commissions, which were not granted untill all those disputes and preparations (wherein your petitioner had nothing to doe) were first brought