The Secretary of the Land Office¹ is hereby authorized and required to issue warrants and patents to all actual settlers, or their representatives, who have heretofore or shall hereafter settle on any of the depreciation land, north and west of the rivers Ohio and Allegheny, which were surveyed into tracts and remained unsold, or the sales whereof have not been confirmed by the supreme executive council, agreeably to an Act of the General Assembly of this Commonwealth, passed March 12, 1783, and not otherwise reserved and appropriated by law, in the same manner and on the same conditions that titles are issued to other actual settlers, for lands on the same side of said rivers; excepting those parts of said land that have been surveyed on warrants, or for which warrants descriptive of the land on which they were located have been entered with the deputy surveyor² of the district previous to such settlement.