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land in the State, 2,629,000 acres of which are swamp lands, 20,000,000 acres capable of being irrigated, and therefore fit for cultivation ; 19,000,000 acres which cannot be irrigated, and 52,000,000 acres of mineral lands; and 10,000,000 acres are claimed by Spanish grants.

It is stated by the land commissioners in their report to the Secretary of the Interior, that the above named 10,000,000 acres comprises the finest portion of the State. And they further state, that one claim alone. pending before the board for adjudication is estimated to be worth thirty-five millions of dollars.

The following language is used by them in speaking of the "character and extent of the claims" submitted to them for confirmation:

"They involve the title to an area of country larger than that contained within the judirisdictional limits of almost any one of the older States of the Union. The quantity covered by the 397 cases already adjudicated exceeds the entire area of any one (with a single exception) of the New England States. They embrace the choice portions of California, the delightful valleys which attracted the early settlers by their beauty and fertility, and which are, and will continue to be, the garden of our possessions on the Pacific coast. They cover the sites of the cities and villages of the State with their thousands and tens of thousands of inhabitants; the ancient missionary establishments, long the pride of the Spanish and Mexican nations, with their churches, their vineyards, and their cultivated fields; and they embrace the homesteads of the entire population of the country, who had their homes here under the dominion of another power. Lands which, when these grants were made, were to be had without price, now required for the thousand purposes of an American population, are estimated at high value. The uncertain boundaries of mountain-ranges, and swamps and hills, are giving place to the lines of the surveyor, carefully run by compass and chain, and the careless reckoning by square leagues of immense tracts for cattle ranches, with ill-defined boundaries and uncertain limits, is being superseded by accurate subdivisions, scrupulously measured into farms, reckoned by acres and roods, and city, town, and village lots designated by their number of square feet and inches." In calling the attention of the Secretary of the Interior to the complex questions submitted for their decision, they say:

"And the variety and difficulty of the questions presented in the investigations of these claims are commensurate with their importance to the claimants and the country. They had their origin among a people whose habits, pursuits in life, notions of property, and of the evidence by which it was sustained and perpetuated, were as wide apart from our own as these, her former American dependencies, are from Peninsular Spain. Every original grant, and every document pertaining to the title, the record of every official act, the history of every public transaction, the laws of the nation, and the pages of their political annals, all of which are involved in these invetigations, are found only in a language foreign to us.

"From almost every source knowledge is required for the proper understanding of these cases. In these investigations questions arise under the national and civil law, expressly made a guide by the act of 3d March, 1951, under the Spanish law, which adopts generally the

principles of the civil law, while it repudiates its authority; under the laws and decrees of independent Mexico, after the dominion of Old Spain was cast off; under the acts of the territorial and departmental authorities of California, sometimes the legitimate representatives of the Mexican government, and at others in a state of uneasy rebellion against them; under the military rule which succeeded the conquest in July, 1846; under the anomalous authority, half civil, half military, which succeeded the close of hostilities, and continued until the State organization of California; under the common law, after its adoption here in 1850; and under the statute laws of the State, which are applicable to all questions regarding the more recent conveyances of the premises claimed. A greater variety of subjects, or a wider field of investigation, was rarely, if ever, open to any tribunal, and the faith of the nation under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, justice to a conquered people, and a due regard to the provisions of the act of Congress organizing this commission, impose the duty of a careful investigation of the many questions presented in these cases. The difficulty of obtaining access to the highest sources of information bearing on these subjects, has occasioned much embarrassment to the commission."

The foregoing presents, in as brief a manner as possible, the history, progress, and condition of the Board of Land Commissioners of the State of California. The policy and reasons for continuing the board one year longer are at once manifest. If it is not done, the commission expires on the fourth of March, 1855, by the limitation of the present law; and the 416 cases yet to be adjudicated fail from a delinquency of neither the claimants nor commissioners, but from the general government's failing to give sufficient time and opportunity for their consideration. The loss which will ensue to the claimants and to the government, and the severe shock to the permanent prosperity of the State, cannot be estimated by dollars and cents. The result would be confusion worse confounded" to the entire land policy of California, by a failure to give the commission another year in which to complete their labors.

By virtue of a clause in the law of the United States regulating the appeal of these land cases to the United States district court, they are all tried de novo by that tribunal. New testimony is taken, and the same work is to be gone over, in order to thoroughly sift the claims and leave no ground for complaint on the part of claimants, or the settlers whose interests are identified with the government.

When these causes get to the United States district court, the United States district attorney is compelled to represent the government in resisting the confirmation of the claims filed. This imposes other duties than ordinarily fail within the line of his duty as a district attorney. The legitimate business before the United States district court, in which the district attorney is engaged, keeps him constantly employed during the year, and the United States district court for the northern district of California is in session during the entire year. The second section of the bill reported by your committee provides for an assistant counsel and clerical aid. Without it, the government's interests cannot be properly protected.

Upon this point we deem it proper to lay before your body the annexed letter of the present United States district attorney, addressed to one of the Committee on Public Lands, which fully presents the whole

case:

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE,

San Francisco, October 16, 1854.

SIR: I beg leave to submit to you the enclosed report of George Fisher, esq., secretary of the Board of the United States Land Commissioners, in reference to the situation of the public business therein referred to, that you may predicate thereupon an application to Congress for such legislation as may be deemed necessary.

Mr. Fisher's report presents an accurate statement of the business disposed of by the board, and of that which remains undisposed of, and also of the business now pending in the United States district court, on appeal from said board, together with conjectural estimates of the amount of labor to be performed in the 416 cases undisposed of by the board, and in those in which transcripts are yet to be made, in reference to which he says that "ten clerks and one draughtsman" will be required for one year in the transcript and record departments of his office.

Under the twelfth section of the act of August 31, 1852, entitled "An act making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic expenses of the government," transcripts in every case finally decided by the board are to be filed with the clerk of the proper district court, the filing of which operates ipso facto as an appeal. Under the tenth section of the act of March 3, 1851, entitled "An act to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the State of California," further evidence may be taken by order of the court; and, under the ninth section of the same act, it is necessary for the United States attorney to file a petition or answer in every case in which the appeal may be prosecuted.

In a letter to the Attorney General, of the date of July 15, 1854, I have adverted to the amount of labor which those acts of Congress have imposed upon the United States attorney, and to the fact that no provision whatever has been made for the employment of necessary clerical aid or for my compensation. It is impossible for me to perform this labor without the assistance of at least three efficient clerks, two of whom should be lawyers, whose compensation should be paid monthly or quarterly; and I am unwilling to devote the larger portion of my own time to this business, unless adequate provision is made by law for my compensation.

Any provision for my compensation, of course, should relate back to the commencement of my official connexion with this business, on the 1st day of June, 1853, since which time it has required and received my attention. The pecuniary interests of the government involved in this litigation are of great magnitude, and I need not suggest to you how important it is, in this point of view, to make promptly the necessary appropriations to have those interests maintained and protected. You can form an idea of the amount of labor devolved upon the United States attorney in the district court from the following brief statement of facts. Within the next two or three months (I am informed by one

of the commissioners,) about three hundred appeals will come into the district court, where ninety-five cases have been pending for some time past. The professional and mechanical labor to be performed in those cases upon an appeal is, on an average, greater than was required in their original preparation and trial before the land commission.

The force there, which consists of three commissioners, two law agents, and eight or ten regular clerks, has been found inadequate to a rapid disposition of the business before the commission. In the preparation of the cases before the board, the law requires no pleading on the part of the United States law agents; but in the district court, the Uniied States attorney, in every case, is required to file a petition or answer, which can only be done properly after a thorough and minute examination of the voluminous records from the commission. But, in addition to this, the decision of the board always discloses the weak points of the case, which the appellants, of course, will seek to strengthen by new testimony in the district court, and which will give rise generally to a more thorough and searching examination of witnesses on the appeal, than was had before the commission. Indeed the first.investigation of the cases is merely preliminary to the more important final contest upon the facts, which arises in the district court. În the larger In number of cases on appeal, the new testimony, taken in the district court, will completely change their aspect; and unless the rights and interests of the United States are maintained, in this litigation, with a vigor and ability equal to that employed by the counsel for the claimants, it would be as well for the government to abandon its claim to the public land in California.

Thus you will perceive that in the preparation and trial of these cases on appeal, the labor imposed upon the United States attorney alone, who is not allowed by law a single assistant or clerk, is actually greater than the amount of labor originally performed before the land commission, which has required the employment of three commissioners, two law agents, and eight or ten regular clerks. How is it possible for any one person, without assistance, to perform these duties in any reasonable time? And how can any man, in justice to himself, even if the requisite assistance were furnished, undertake the performance of such duties without compensation? Appropriations for these purposes cannot be regarded as donations to California, or as inuring to the benefit of California alone or her citizens, but as wise and necessary expenditures for the augmentation of the revenue from public lands. I have no hesitation in saying, that the money thus appropriated would be returned to the government with tenfold increase, through the land offices in Califormia. The question presented to Congress is this: "Will you preserve the public lands in California, or will you abandon them, from a false economy in refusing the small appropriations necessary for their preservation?" I assure you that the refusal to make these appropriations, at the next session of Cngress, will be followed by irremediable loss and injury to the revenues of the government.

From the 1st of June, 1853, (the commencement of my official term,) up to the 1st of June, 1854, I have defrayed, from my own resources, the expenses of clerk-hire and other expenses incident to this and the

other business of my office; but since the last named period I have been compelled, in justice to myself, to discontinue those disbursements. The clerks in this office, three in number, have continued since in the performance of their duties, upon the expectation that an appropriation would be made for their payment at the ensuing session of Congress; and if Congress should adjourn without realizing this expectation, I shall be left without assistance, and the business of the government without that attention which is indispensably necessary to its successful management.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. MILTON S. LATHAM,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

S. W. INGE.

I concur in the necessity of appropriations by Congress at its next session for the objects indicated in the foregoing letter.

ISAAC S. K. OGIER,

United States District Judge presiding in the

Northern District of California.

We, the undersigned, commissioners to ascertain and settle private land claims in the State of California, concur in the necessity of an appropriation by Congress at the ensuing session to supply the wants of the public business arising from appeals to the United States district court from this commission in land cases, and recommend the same. ALPHEUS FELCH.

R. AUG. THOMPSON.
S. B. FARWELL.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 21, 1854.

S. W. Inge, esq., U. S. District Attorney,

To Andrew Glassell, DR.

To services in the office of the U. S. district attorney for the northern district of California, as assistant attorney and clerk, from the 1st day of June, 1853, to the 1st day of June, 1854, at $300 a month

Received payment in full, from S. W. Inge, esq.

S. W. Inge, esq., U. S. District Attorney,

$3,600 00

A. GLASSELL.

To John A. Godfrey, DR.

To services in the office of the U. S. district attorney for
the northern district of California, as assistant attorney
and clerk, from the 1st of October, 1953, to 1st of June,
1854, at $300 per month.....
Received by cash from S. W. Inge, esq...

Balance due

$2,290 00 900 00

1,390 00

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