WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1838
213
What the character of the original claims in these cases were, can only be ascertained by an inspection of the proofs, and rec- ords of the land board. The peculiar situation of that district of country, renders an investigation of the proceeding of the board necessary, before patents are issued upon their certificates. I am informed the boards in some counties have been in the habit of receiving the proofs of claims under the 12th section of the land law, in the form of depositions, without requiring the pres- ence of the witness or claimant. Such a practice is plainly a per- version of the requisitions and policy of the law, and calculated to produce the grossest impositions upon the government. The commissioner general, in giving to the surveyors the in- structions contemplated by the 9th section of the land law, re- quired them to refrain from surveying all lands, for which titles were known to have actually issued. It is known that in some cases these instructions have been violated, and that surveys have been made and returned upon lands held under titles of long standing and regularly issued. Many of these titles are, no doubt, liable to be located and annulled; but this can only be effected at the instance and in the mode pointed out by the government, and when effected, the lands covered by them become a distinct and special description of public property, to be disposed of for the common benefit, and not liable to the locations and claims of individuals. They have been withdrawn from the common mass of public domain, and out of respect for the grants made, been passed over by the early settlers of the country, although it was obvious that they embraced its choicest lands. They have laid their claims elsewhere, and to give to more recent emigrants the privilege of locating these lands, after the government shall have annulled the former grants, would be doing an act of public injustice to the former, and depriving the country of one of its most substantial resources. In other cases, new surveys have, perhaps, unintentionally trenched upon deeded lands, and ·cautions have been lodged in the office of the Commissioner General against issuing patents until surveys should have been counted; in other cases, conflict- ing claims to the patents have been interposed, and the Commis- sioner General enjoined against issuing a patent to the defendents until the right should be decided by tribunals. The boundary lines between some of the counties are not well defined, and there is reason to believe the same tracts have been
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