It was conceded in the court below that the premises, to remove the cloud from which the present bill is filed, were at the time 'pueblo lands' of San Francisco,-that is, that they were part of the lands claimed by the city as successor of a Mexican pueblo of that name; that they are within the limits of the city of San Francisco as prescribed by the charter of 1851, and are within the four square leagues described in the decree of the United States circuit court for the district of California, entered May 18, 1865, by which the claim of the city as such successor was confirmed and its boundaries established, and also within the lines of the patent of the United States for the pueblo lands, issued to the city in 1884. It was also stipulated that the decree of the circuit court and the patent of the United States should be considered as in evidence, and that all the statutes of California and of the United States affecting the pueblo lands of San Francisco might be referred to, in the consideration of the case, as though formally in troduced in evidence.
The plaintiffs in their bill rely principally upon the decree of the district court for the twelfth judicial district of the state, in the case brought by William J. Shaw to quiet his title against the claim of the defendant herein, contending that the title of Shaw, through whom they deraign their interest, was thereby adjudged to be valid as against the defendant, and parties deriving title under the defendant, and that they are estopped from asserting against that decree any title or interest in the premises. The decree was rendered upon a disclaimer of the city and county of San Francisco, by its attorney, that it had any right, title, or interest in the premises described in the complaint, or any part thereof, at the commencement of the suit, and its consent that the plaintiff might take judgment therein in accordance with his prayer. Whatever authority the attorney of the city and county may have had to conduct its ordinary litigation, he had none to relinquish rights reserved for the benefit of the public by the Van Ness ordinance; and the property in that case was claimed, as will be afterwards seen, under that ordinance alone. The city and county of San Francisco had previously succeeded to all the rights of property, and become subject to all the liabilities, of the city. Act of April 19, 1856, consolidating the government of the city and county of San Francisco. The plaintiffs did not, however, on the hearing, rely principally, or to any great extent, upon any estopel by that decree, but endeavored to establish their claim of title by conveyances from former occupants of different parcels of land, known as the 'Kissling Tract,' and the 'Thorne and Center Tract,' and of the rights inuring to the occupants under what is known, from its reputed author, as the 'Van Ness Ordinance,' the object of which was to settle and quiet the title of persons in possession of lands in the city of San Francisco; and under the act of the legislature of the state of California, passed in March, 1858, ratifying and confirming the ordinance; and under the act of congress relinquishing and granting to the city all the interest of the United States to lands within the corporate limits of the act of 1851, in trust for the uses and purposes of that ordinance. They also claimed the benefit of a deed of the tide-land commissioners of the state to Eugene L. Sullivan, one of the grantors of William J. Shaw, dated December 3, 1870, which purported, for the consideration of $352.80, to release to the grantee the right, title, and interest of the state of California to the premises therein described.