Pursuant to this congressional decree the Executive Government took measures for a funeral pageant of the most imposing and demonstrative kind, military, civic and popular. (Ib. p. 395.)

It is proper further to say that the sons of Iturbide have been constanty preferred to high public trusts under the many phases of the government of their country.

These facts are all historical, as are also the particular data concerning the concession of land contained in the record of the case made in the Commission and the District Court.

But, says the Attorney General, "the District Court refused to believe this monstrous story" [of the concession of land], and "the Supreme Court affirms the decision." I am led here to pause. These falsifications so in direct face of record evidence almost universally accesible, are hardly reconcilable with a sane. or responsible state of mind on the part of the utterer. For this reason I will but cite the Supreme Court itself to speak to the facts. I quote from vol. 22 of Howard's Reports, p. 291.

“Mr. Justice McLean delivered the opinion of the Court.

"This is an appeal from the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of California. A grant of twenty leagues square of land, equal to four hundred square leagues, was made by the supreme Government of Mexico to President Iturbide, to be located in Texas, on 25th February, 1822, 'in recompense for his high merit, in having achieved the independence of his country.'

"In 1835, the Congress of Mexico authorized his heirs to locate the land in New Mexico, or in Upper or Lower California. On the 20th of February, 1841, it was decreed by the President that the land should be located in Upper California; and on the 5th of June orders were given by the President to the Governor of California to assign the land selected by Salvador de Iturbide, one of the heirs, in fulfilment of the grant, and the order was duly received by Pio Pico; but when Salvador was near Mazatlan, en route for California, to locate and take possession of the land, he found that port in rebellion, and was obliged to return to Mexico.

"The claimants took no further proceedings till after the close of the war with the United States, and Congress had passed laws to carry into effect the treaty stipulations. They then proceeded to locate the claim. on the track described on the map, and presented their petition to the

Board of Commissioners, asking for the confirmation of the grant. The Board rejected the claim, on the ground that it had been located prior to the change of government.

"An appeal was taken to the District Court, under the act of 1852; but the counsel of appellants being detained from home by sickness, did not file the notice, directed by the act to be given within six months."

The opinion then goes on to show that the District Court found the Statute of Congress obligatory, and that the appeal under it could not be entertained for want of due notice. The Supreme Court, after reviewing the Statute, also found it 'mandatory," and not permitting "the exercise of any disdiscretion."

The claim of Iturbide was, in my opinion, decided rightly by the Commissioners, and if it had gone on its merits to the Supreme Court, I do not doubt that the decision would have been the same. It is a claim upon the public domain of Mexico, and not upon that which had passed to the United States. But that was a question of public law, which eminent counsel considered debateable, and which the claimants had a perfect right to present and argue; and that was all they did. To villify them for it is only in itself villainous.

In speaking of the Attorney General's statement of the Galbraith claim, I omitted to quote the volume where it is reported. It is in 22 Howard, p. 89.

I have two words more to say touching that case. 1. New testimony is now taking in it, in pursuance of the mandate of the Supreme Court, notwithstanding the assertion of the Attorney General that it had been "rejected." 2. There is a paper in the case-not the grant-which the Attorney General both in argument and in his report delares to be "not antedated, but simply a forgery." Whether this allegation be true or not, it is certain that the body of that paper is in the handwriting of a person who was one of the four Electors to cast the vote of this State for the present incumbent of the Presidency. It would be interesting to know if he is one of the gentlemen whom the Attorney General has caused to be "biographied," and if that particular fact in his memoirs is counted a propitiatory

atonement under the Attorney General's "penal statute." I call the attention of the District Attorney of the Southern District to the pertinacity of the inqury, and of all inquiring minds to its logic and philosophy.

No. VIII.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 3, 1860.

The ostensible object of the Attorney General's Report is to account for the expenditure of a considerable sum of money which he had procured the allowance of from Congress, and to lay a foundation for further appropriations, subject to his disbursement. To these ends, he announces that there were "lands claimed under grants ascertained to be forged " to the amount of "not less than one hundred and fifty millions of dollars!" and that with the paltry sum of $102,000, he had already encountered and routed, "exposed and defeated," “more than two-thirds of them in value." He then goes into an exemplification of the work still "to be done." But here, rapid as his arithmetic is, it does not keep peace with his zeal. Having vanquished "more than two-thirds" of this formidable host, a "half" remains; as witness this passage:

"About thirty claims under fraudulent grants are still pending, some of them in the District Court, and some in the Supreme Court on appeal. These claims involve property supposed to be worth about half as much as that which has already been wrested from the hands of the spoilers. Estimates have been made for the appropriations necessary to keep up the defense."

The cause of education is thus indebted to the enlightened Attorney General for two new rules in cyphering, namely: the bragging or boasting, and the supplicatory or begging. By the first, "about one-half" becomes "more than two-thirds;" by the second, less than one-third becomes "about one-half" making a difference in the initiatory problem stated by our new professor of figures, of the snug sum of twenty-five to thirty millions. I think the country will agree with me, that the developer of this improvement in the science of numbers.

ought rather to have his reward in the fisc, than where he would be confined to the exact lines of truth which belong to the morality of the law and the Bench. The exchequer—that is to say, that part of it available to the administrative department-could not fail to be made the most of under his direction. Already in his capacity of chief legal adviser, arithmetic has ceased to be one of the exact sciences.

But it is not with this looseness of statement-sufficient, though it be, in itself to impeach the whole document in respect of veracity and reliability, and disgraceful in a state paper dealing with matters of such magnitude, or, in fact, with any official paper—it is with a matter of more gravity that I have now to deal.

The Attorney General's report is, in consequence of a call from the House of Representatives, to know how certain moneys went; and it professes to give "a detailed statement of the amount expended," and "an explanation of the circumstances under which these appropriations were asked for, for the purpose to which they have been devoted, and the results accomplished."

To show the "results accomplised" by aid of that fund, he cites twenty cases "recently disposed of (as he says) in favor of the Government." Very few of these cases have really been.

disposed of." I do not know exactly how many, for the last volume of the Supreme Court Reports is not received here; but am nearly certain not above one-half of them. The others are "remitted" for further testimony. What may be their ultimate fate is a question apart from this exposition. But whether of claims actually rejected, or only sent back for further elucidation, not two in ten had the benefit of one cent of the expenditure out of the fund that they are lugged in to bear the burden of. In one case, at least, and that the most important in point of value of all that, in this category, the Attorney General mentions, if the fund operated at all, its operation was in behalf of the claim. I allude to the case Santillan, concerning which Mr. Attorney General brings forward his achievements with this flourish of trumpets.

"THE SANTILLAN CLAIM-This was prosecuted in the name of James R. Bolton, but at the time of the final decision the title was held partly by Palmer, Cook & Co., and partly by an association of gentlemen in Philadelphia. It covered a large part of the city of San Francisco, including public and private property valued at many millions of dollars. The Board of Land Commissioners placed upon record a strong opinion in its favor, and the District Court, being without those tests which the archives have since furnished, affirmed the decree. This was early in 1857. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, and was argued at the last term. The tribunal of the last resort regarded the grant as being not only without legal validity, but totally destitute of the proof necessary to show its honesty. It purports to have been made by Pio Pico in February, 1846, to José Prudencia Santillan, who was at that time priest of the Mission at San Francisco Dolores. But he never claimed it for several years afterwards; on the contrary, he denied any ownership of it until the early part of 1850, when he transferred it to Bolton. The great crime of forging the grant and imposing it upon the courts as genuine, is not charged upon Santillan himself. He is believed to have been the tool of others."

Before going to the main point of this present letter I have some inquiries to make:

1. The Attorney General states that the District Court was "without those tests that the archives have since furnished." What new archives has this "SINCE" furnished that the Court could not be acquainted with nor the Government lawyers bring to its notice?

2. Santillan "transferred" the grant; but the "great crime of forging" it is "not charged on him." He is believed to have been the "tool of others." Who are those "others ?” ?" Who are or were the perpetrators of the "great crime?" How is it that its recipient and beneficiary is innocent and only a "tool?" Whose "tool" was he? Why does the "penal statute " sleep either for the "tool" or its supposititious handlers ?

To pause before inquiries of this sort, Mr. Attorney General, and Messrs. District Attorneys, and "Assistant Counsel," is only to confess that the report is a general (and in that view unmitigably base) libel, or that there is not courage in the concern to meet the occasion. I say unmitigably base, because a general scandal is of a meaner sort than a personal libel-the