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by your own view as by such other good waies and meanes as you judge fitt, to informe yourselves of the truth in such particulars, and to certify as well the said evidence at large as your own judgment touching those particulars, with the reasons inducing you to vary from such evidence.
Where you shall find no possibility, by reason of the wastnes or depopulation of the country, to make so particular a survey as is directed, or to inform yourselves so exactly of the meets, bounds, or other certenties of the premisses, or any of them, as is before required, you are in such cases to use your best wayes and meanes you can for the discovery of all and every the particulars herein given you in charge, and to certify upon all such particulars the manner of your proceedings, and the causes why you cannot returne the said survey of them according to the instructions given you.
And because it is required that the quantity or number of acres contained in the premisses, and in every part or parcell of them, should be distinctly and particularly admeasured, you are, therefore, out of the survey taken by you of the premisses, and every part of the same, to cause an abstract to bee drawn, containing the names of all and every such parcells of land as shall bee by you surveyed in every respective barony, according to the tenor of your commission, with their respective bounds and meets, and the parishes or places where the same do respectively lie, not mentioning the quantity or value of the same; and the said abstract so drawn you are to deliver to such persons as shall be authorized and commissioned to admeasure the same. In which abstract you are to distinguish which of the said lands are forfeited lands, and also which lands are Crown lands, and which lands are lands lately belonging to any archbishop, bishop, dean, dean and chapter, or other officers of that hierarchy, to the end the same may bee distinctly admeasured, and distinct plotts returned of the same.
And for the better assistance of the said persons who shall be appointed to admeasure the premisses, or any part of them, you are hereby authorized and required, by warrants under your hand, to appoint (out of the inhabitants of the said county), such and so many fitt persons as shall be judged necessary to attend the said surveyors in admeasuring of the premisses, or any parte thereof, for to shew and tread out the meets and bounds of any the said lands respectively; as also to informe and make known, as often as there shall bee occasion, the meets of the several baronies and parishes, and the course that the said meets and bounds doe runne.
And for the more full and better discovery of the interest of the Commonwealth in or out of lands in the said county, you are further authorized and appointed to inquire what other lands in any of the baronies aforesaid are claymed by any English or Protestants, how meared, scituate, and bounded, and in what parishes or places respectively the said lands doe lye, what number of acres such lands so claymed do respectively conteine by estimation, according to the measure of 21 ffoot to the pole, and 160 poles to the acre; what leases, annuities, rents, or other profits are made off, or is issuing, or of right ought to issue out of the same to the Commonwealth, in right of any person or persons who have forfeited their interests in the same to the Commonwealth; which you are likewise to return in your survey, therein setting down the particular yearly values of every such lease, annuity, rent, or other profitt.