This was provided for in that very ablj' drawn, liberal, and just "Code of Laws," enacted and promulgated at the first meeting of delegates of the people of the Towns of the Province of New York under the English rule, held at Hempstead, in Queens Cuunty, on June 24th, 1665, nine months only after the Dutch surrender, known as " The Duke's Laws." This code, the earliest of the codes of New York, full, clear, and complete, is well arranged in an alphabetical division of its subjects. Under the heading " Lands," is this provision, " To the end all former Purchases may be ascertained to the present possessor or right owner. They shall bring in their former Grants, and take out new Pattents for the same from the present Governoure in the behalf of his Royall Highness the Duke of Yorke ; " then after directing the making and filing of a survey and map within a year from the date of a purchase, the law continues, " Every Purchaser in acknowledgment of the propriety of such Lands belonging to bis Royal Highness James Duke of York, shall upon the sealing of the Pattent Pay unto the Governoure so much as they shall agree upon ;»not exceeding hundred acres." Some amendments and alterations were made to this code pursuant to its own j)rovisions at a meeting of the Court of General Assizes' held in ihc City of New York at the close of September, 1665, throe months later, one of which re-enacts the last cited clause in these more definite words, -- " To the end all former Purchases &c, all persons whatsoever who have any Grants or Patents of Towneshipps, Lands, or Houses, within this Government, shall bring in the said Grants or Patents to the Governoure and shall have them Revewed by Authority from his Royall Highness the Duke of Yorke, before the beginningeof the next Court of Assizes.^ That every purchaser &c. shall pay for every hundred acres as an acknowledgment two Shillings and six pence.'