The Depositions of Alexander McCulloch Esqre Deputy Auditor of the Province aforesaid being of full age and duly sworn to the 1st Interrogatory sayeth that he well knows his Excellency the Governour
had Instructions from his Majesty that before any person shou'd have liberty to take up lands they should be first obliged to prove their rights and then to Petition in open Council for what is called a Warrant and after the said Warrant was returned with a Plot of the survey then they were to petition for a Patent agreable to said Warrant which Patent if granted was to be signed by the said Governour in Council and the said Governour notwithstanding his said Instructions has granted several Warrants out of Council and signed many Patents and that several of the said Warrants were not audited in which case it was in the Govrs and Surveyor Generals Power to grant Blank Warrants rents or act in any loose manner they might think proper that the cause of his knowledge is that he always attends his Office as Deputy Auditor through which Office all said Warrants and Patents do or ought to pass.To the second Interrogatory deposeth that he has seen several Blank Patents in the room where Mr. Edward Griffith sleept at the house of one Mr. Abraham Duncan near Bath signed by the Govr but cannot exactly tell what number.
To the third Interrogatory swears he was present at two Tryalls between the Memorialist and Capt Rowan for the sum of fifteen hundred pounds or some such large sum before Enoch Hall Esqre the Chief Justice of said Province and that one of the said suits was granted in favour of the Memorialist and on the other a special verdict.
The said Deponent to the fourth Interrogatory says that Enoch Hall Esqre then Chief Justice before whom the aforesaid causes was tryed refused the Memorialist liberty upon the said Tryals of reading some letters of Govr Johnstons which related to the then dispute which was in favour of the said Memorialist and allowed Samll Johnston Esqre the Govrs brother to give Evidence to a Proscript or Paragraph of a Letter said to be written by the Memorialist to the Governour without producing the said letters or alledging the same to be lost. His cause of knowledge is that he was present at the said Tryal.