19 Ala. 421 | Ala. | 1851
The government of the United States having acquired the territory of Louisiana by the treaty concluded at Paris on the 30th of April, 1803, it became necessary to ascertain the lands which had been granted to individuals in the ceded territory by the different sovereigns, through whose hands it had passed. Until this was done, it could not be known what lands were private property, nor what public domain. To do this, to distinguish tho private from the public land, commissioners from time to time were appointed, whose duty it was to examine into all claims presented to them, to make a record of such claims, and report them to the Secretary of the Treasury, together with their opinion as to their validity. It was also made the duty of all claimants to land to present their claims
At this stage of the plaintiff’s title it may be well to consider what title did the applicant present to the commissioner ? What title did he show as against the government of the United States, in the testator, through whose will he claimed 1 All will at once admit, that he stood at the mercy of the government, without any legal title rvhatever. The possession of the testator, and the idea or possibility that the Spanish authorities may have granted the lot to him, the evidence of which was lost, might very well form a reason or an inducement why the government of the United States should grant a title to the applicant, but such evi
The plaintiffs must therefore rely, as in fact they do, upon the report of the commissioner, and the act of Congress of the 8th of May, 1822, confirmatory thereof, as the source of their title; and to the extent that they can show title under this act, they have title without any regard to the boundaries of the supposed Spanish grant. We must therefore look to the commissioner’s report, and to the act of Congress confirming it, to ascertain the character and extent of the plaintiffs’ title. The commissioner reported the claim as one founded on a private conveyance that had passed through the office of the commandant, but recommended its confirmation on the ground that it had been possessed and cultivated by the testator from the year 1782 until the year 1812. His report gives the dimensions of the lot as described in the petition, but not its boundaries. On the 8th day of May, 1822, Congress passed an act entitled “ an act confirming claims to lots in the town of Mobile, and to lands in the former province of Louisiana, which claims have been reported favorably on by the commissioner,” the third section of which is in the following language : cc That all claims in the town aforesaid, reported as aforesaid, and contained in the reports'of the commissioners, and of the register and receiver acting as commissioner, founded on private conveyances which have passed through the office of the commandant, or other evidence, but founded, as the claimant alleges, upon grants lost by timo or accident, and which ought, in the opinion of the commissioners, to be confirmed, shall be confirmed in the same manner as if the titles were in existence. Provided, that in all such claims, when the quantity claimed is not ascertained, no one claim shall be confirmed for a quantity more than seven thousand two hundred square feet.”
The fifth section of the act authorizes the registers and receivers to direct the manner in which all claims to land confirmed
Under the provisions of this act the register and receiver issued to the plaintiffs a certificate of confirmation, and also a warrant of survey, by which the surveyor was directed to locate the plaintiffs’ claim so as not to interfere with the claims of Henry Baudain or Piere Lucien. The plaintiffs also introduced a diagram, or plat, of said lot, taken from the map of the city of Mobile, which was approved, of by the Surveyor General and deposited in the office of the register and receiver at St. Stephens, which shows that the plaintiffs’ lot had a front on Dauphin street of about one hundred and thirty-two feet, but there was no other evidence that the claim was located or surveyed under the authority of the warrant. This is, in substance, the written evidence of the plaintiffs’ title, and it is insisted that they failed to show such a title as will support the action of ejectment. We are, however, constrained to hold otherwise. In the case of Hallett v. Eslava, (2 Stewart, 115,) the plaintiff’s title was derived under the same act of Congress, and he offered in evidence a certificate of confirmation issued by the register and receiver in pursuance thereof, and the only question was, whether the plaintiff had offered such evidence of legal title as Would support the action of ejectment. It was held sufficient under our act of the Legislature, passed in 1812. — Clay’s Dig. 341.' This decision has never been overruled, but on the contrary, has been affirmed in several subsequent cases.—See 3 Stewart & Por. 105 ; also Lewis v. Gognette, ib. 180; Ryder v. Innerarity, 4 ib. 14; Eslava v. The Heirs of Farmer, 7 Ala. 543. Under the influence of these decisions we must hold that the title shown by the plaintiffs is such as must prevail at law, unless in the defence a better title was shown by the defendant. We, however, think it unnecessary at this time, to examine the title introduced by the defendant, for, under the instructions of the court, it became unnecessary for the jury to consider of any other fact than this, whether the locus in quo was within the limits of the supposed Spanish grant. This instruction evidently made the Spanish Government the source of the plaintiffs’ title, and the quantity to which they were entitled to depend upon their old Spanish grant. But it is manifest that they offered no evidence of a written grant from the government of Spain, and