Case Name: Alexander Hamilton's Lessee against Cawood and Blacklock
Court: General Court of Maryland
Jurisdiction: Maryland
Decision Date: 1796-05
Citations: 3 Md. 437
Docket Number: 
Parties: Alexander Hamilton’s Lessee against Cawood and Blacklock.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maryland reports, being a series of the most important law cases argued and determined in the Provincial Court and Court of Appeals of the then province of Maryland, from the year 1700 [i.e. 1658] down to the [end of 1799]
Volume: 3
Pages: 437–438

Head Matter:
GENERAL COURT,
MAY TERM, 1796.
Alexander Hamilton’s Lessee against Cawood and Blacklock.
THIS was an ejectment for part of a tract of land called Friendship, lying in Charles county. Defence was taken on warrant, and plats were returned.
At the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence the deed of William Hoskins^ conveying 333 acres, part of the tract of land called friendship, to Mary Smallwood,, in which deed the land was described to run by course and distance without any natural boundary.
Martin, (Attorney-General,) for the defendants,
moved the court to direct the jury that the deed could convey no lands but what were within the courses and distances, and that no evidence could be given that they extended further; contending, that if a grant or deed has no calls, and nothing but courses and distances, that the lines must be run according to the course and distance, allowing for the variation of the needle.
Cooke, for the plaintiff.
If it can be ascertained where the courses and distances did run, there the plaintiff must go, and it is the duty of the jury to ascertain that in the best manner they can from the evidence laid be fore them. If the second course in the deed had called for a tree, no doubt the plaintiff ought to go to it, though it stood in a different direction, and much further than the course and distance expressed in the deed. If the plaintiff had nothing else to govern him, he should be bound by the course and distance; but if the jury can be satisfied that the parties had run to a different place for the termination of that line, there the jury are bound to carry them. The plaintiff can prove, by testimony, that the land has always been considered to lay as located by the plaintiff.

Opinion:
The Court
were of opinion that the party must be confined to his courses and distances, and that he cannot explain by parol testimony what land was intended to be conveyed.
The plaintiff suffered a nonsuit.