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latter being actionable or resentable, and the other going free like an undefined taint in the atmosphere.

To return to Mr. Attorney General's money disbursements. By far the largest item of his "detailed statement"—indeed the gross of it-is of fees, emoluments and disbursements controlled by his former law associate and late photographist, Mr. Stanton. Now, Mr. Stanton was not counsel against that case at all. Before he came to California he was counsel for it, and he received that employment in consequence of suggestions of the Attorney General himself. He made a brief in favor of the claim. He reported it not only good, but "impregnable "that is the word, impregnable—a sort of legal and equitable Gibraltar. He came to California, therefore, charged, I do not say with both sides of the case, but rather in a blended and mixed sort of way that made it all one-sided. He came with a stipu lation concerning the case, on the part of the Attorney General, which stipulation the Attorney General did not stick up to; and that is the way our Hercules of an Attorney General got through his own straits. He backed out of them; went out with the tide. Moreover, if the eminent labors of Mr. Stanton here, offered any new facts tending to damage the claim, or to change his previous impressions of it, they obstinately remained in the back ground; even the concentrated rays of his photographic lens failed to bring out their colors; for he reported on his return to Philadelphia and Washington that the facts which he had gathered and collated here had confirmed his opinion of its soundness and impregnability.'

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These remarks are not to any question concerning the oper ations of Mr. Stanton other than as the facts falsify the representations of his principal. They are to the point that the Attorney General's report, in respect to his expenditures of public moneys, or of any agency that he has had in protecting public interests here, are not merely negatively but positively false. They are with a view to prevent wrong impressions, and unfounded hopes and unfounded fears from growing out of his malversations, to the detriment of the real interests of our suffering State. They are with a view, in behalf of our common country, that the man who has so sullied the office of first

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Legal Adviser under the Constitution, shall not have his iniquitous reward by a place in its highest Judiciary.

No. IX.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 8, 1860.

The Attorney General cites a number of cases as of "work done," which I had intended to notice his statements of; but the delay in the receipt of the volume of Supreme Court Reports, in which they are contained, prevents me. I am acquainted with the facts, but prefer to point to volume and page for their verification.

Therefore, I pass to a brief notice of the Attorney General's statements concerning his "examples of the work which remains to be done.”

First, in that category, the Attorney General puts the case of the Cinnabar Mines of New Almaden. This case, and the proceeding in it, are at this moment attracting so much attention, and it is so immediately the subject of judicial investigation, that I refrain from remark on anything that relates to it.

The next case which the Attorney-General alludes to as "not yet disposed of," and as of the "work yet to be done," is reported to him as follows:

“Peter Sherrebeck's Claim is said to be under an Alcalde's grant. It is located fn the heart of San Francisco, and is covered all over with the most expensive buildings in that city. It was determined in the District Court in favor of the claimant. An appeal has been taken, but the record has not been sent up. I do not, therefore, speak with certainty about it. The high character of Judge Hoffman, for ability as well as integrity, entitles every opinion of his to profound respect. But the law is not one of the exact sciences, and I have reason to believe that the title is a fraud. If it be so it should receive no quarter, for its confirmation would be a mere robbery of the men who have spent their labor and money in building up and otherwise improving the city."

At the time the Attorney General wrote, the case of Sherrebeck was not among the "undisposed of." It was disposed of

in favor of the claimant, and under circumstances that some passages from the opinion of the District Court will explain:

"No argument [says the Court] has been made or brief filed on the part of the United States.

"It is to be regretted that in a case of so great importance the Court is left to determine questions of law without argument from both sides, and to decide questions of fact which it would seem could be ascertained with entire certainty merely by a preponderance of testimony.

"The case was submitted to the Court on the 28th of August, 1857, on briefs filed.

"The claimants have frequently called the attention of the Court to the case, and they have a right to insist that a decision be rendered. I therefore proceed to decide it on the evidence before me.

"It does not appear from the transcript of the evidence before the Board, that any attempt to impeach their authenticity was made by the United States, nor is any doubt on the subject anywhere suggested.

“Obliged as I am to decide the case upon the evidence submitted, I have no alternative but to determine that the preponderance of testimony is on the side of the claimant. If the fact be otherwise than as testified to by them, it would have been easy for the United States to have established it.

"But, as before observed, no testimony whatever has been taken by the United States, since January, 1856, when the transcript was filed in this Court. No objection to the claim, for want of occupation and cultivation, is noticed in the opinion of the Board, nor is any objection, whatsoever, to its validity, taken by the United States in this Court. "No objection on this point [a point of law] has been made by the United States."

So it appears, that from January, 1856, to November, 1859 -four years less one month-the Government did not offer to the Court a line of evidence to a point "easily to have been established," nor a brief nor an argument to a point of law.*

Again, from August, 1857, when the case was submitted to the Court, to November, 1859-three years and two months— the claimants continued to call for a hearing, and the United States as persistently remained inactive.

At last, in despair of the Government, or its law representa

* [It is proper to state that the Sherrebeck claim was taken up during the absence at Washington of the then District Attorney.]

tives, taking any part in the detection or defeat of the claim, the Court was compelled to meet and decide it as a case virtually ex parte.

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The Attorney General says, that "proper estimates have been made" for procuring from Congress the funds to "keep up the defense." The public would like to know if the foregoing is an example of the kind of defense that was to be "kept up.' Where were the government law agents in the time of the Commission? Where Mr. Stanton and staff, and "Assistant Counsel" whilst the case was before the District Court? Where the Attorney General's extra $80,000 fund, that no part of it could go to this case?-a case in which there is not a particle of "archive evidence," and hence beyond the aid, or necessity, of "photographic exhibits.'

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The Attorney General says now, after the confirmation of the claim by the District Court, and the consequent concentration of public security upon it, that he has "reason to believe that the title is a fraud." "If it be so, then no quarter," etc.

But how is this hypothetical view of the case to be reconciled with the previous declarations of the Attorney General in the same report, that he had in his hands the "means of demonstrating frauds"-by which "it was not difficult to point out every case in which a forgery had been perpetrated," and where cases were of "a fraudulent character," to assert them to be so "with perfect confidence?" Why is it, that in the Sherrebeck case he has only a "belief?" There is not a plainer or simpler case in the records of California land claims. The Attorney General shows either his ignorance of the case, or a wilful misrepresentation, in the first line of his statement of it. It is not "said to be an Alcalde's grant," as the Attorney General announces. It professes to be under a Prefect's grant. If justice should be done upon it, as I do not doubt, under the skilful management of the counsel now having it in hand, the fact will be the same, that the Attorney General's extra fund for "keeping up the defense" will not have incurred the responsi bility, nor have contributed to the cost.

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SAN FRANCISCO, December 15, 1860.

When the foregoing letters appeared in journals of the day, the writer had the intention to continue the series to some further extent. A press of other matters prevented. He has been frequently applied to for a collection of the letters in pamphlet form; he has now given them one for that purpose. The best information that we have supposes that the President intends to nominate Black-even to be the successor of Chief Justice TANEY—to occupy the seat of JAY and MARSHALL. If the exposition here made shall have any effect in preventing such an abuse, the time and labor will have been well compensated in a consciousness of having done a valuable public service.

WM. CAREY JONES.

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