This is an appeal from a decree of the District Court of the United States for the northern district of California, affirming a decree of the commissioners appointed under the act of the third of March, 1851, to adjudicate private land claims. Every person claiming land in California, by virtue of any right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican Government, is required by the eighth section of that act to present his claim, together with the evidence in support of the same, to the commissioners in the first instance, for their adjudication.
Pursuant to that requirement, the appellee in this case presented his petition to that tribunal, claiming title to the island of Los Angeles, situated near the entrance of the bay of San Francisco, and praying that his claim to the same might be confirmed. As the foundation of his title, he set up a certain instrument or document, purporting to be a grant of the island to him by Governor Alvarado. It bears date at Monterey, on the eleventh day of June, 1839; and the claimant alleged in his petition to the commissioners that the grant was made under certain special orders issued to the Governor by the Mexican Government. He obtained a decree in his favor before the commissioners, and the District Court, on appeal, affirmed that decree; whereupon an appeal was taken, in behalf of the United States, to this court; and the question now is, whether the claim, upon the evidence exhibited, is valid, within the principles prescribed as the rule of decision in the eleventh section of the act requiring the adjudication to be made.
Unlike what is usual in cases of this description, it will be noticed that none of the documentary evidences of title introduced in support of the claim purport to be founded upon the colonization law of 1824, or the regulations of 1828; and for that reason we shall refer to these documents with some degree of particularity, in order that their precise import and effect may be clearly understood.
On the seventh day of October, 1837, the present claimant presented a petition to Governor Alvarado, praying for a grant of the island in question, 'to build a house thereon, and breed horses and mules;' representing, in his petition, that as early as 1830 he had made a similar request, and expressing the hope that the grant might be made.
Some further delay occurred in the contemplated enterprise of the petitioner, as appears from the fact that no action was taken on his second petition until the first day of February, 1838, when the Governor, by an order appearing in the margin of the petition, referred it, not to the alcalde of the district, but to the military commandancy north of San Francisco, for a report. That office was filled at the time by Mariano G. Vallejo, who accordingly reported, on the seventh day of the same month, that the island might be granted to the petitioner; but suggested that it would be well to made an exception in the grant, to the effect that, whenever the Government might desire or find it convenient to build a fort on the principal height thereof, it should not be hindered from so doing. With that report before him, the Governor, on the nineteenth day of February, 1838, made a decree, wherein he states that he had concluded to grant to the petitioner the occupation of the island in question, 'to the end that he may make such use of it as he may deem most suitable, to build a house, raise stock, and do everything that may concern the advancement of the mercantile and agricultural branches-upon the condition that, whenever it may be convenient, the Government may establish a fort thereon.'
Direction was given to the petitioner, by the terms of the instrument, to present himself, with the decree, not to the office where land adjudications under the colonization laws were usually recorded, but to the military commandancy, that an entry thereof might be made, for the due verification of the same.
No such note of the proceeding was ever made in the office of the military comandante, or in any book containing the adjudications of land titles. But the several documents are duly certified copies of unrecorded originals which were found in the Mexican archives. Their genuineness is controverted by the counsel for the appellants; but we do not think it necessary to consider that question on this branch of the case, for the reason that the petitioner never took possession of the island under that decree, and does not claim title under it in the petition which he presented to the land commissioners.