MEXICAN GRANTS. 457 
had dispatched ail the cases. The trials had been fuir, the 
hearings deliberate and public, the opposition on the part of 
the United States law agents stubborn. All the law agents 
were competent men, and no one can justly complain that the 
interests of the United States were neglected by any one of 
them. The claimants had been kept in litigation three years ; 
they had been compelled to bring numerous witnesses from 
remote parts of the state, to pay for interpreters, to fee law- 
yers, 1t rates unheard of before in the world, to dance atten- 
dance "1pon the court, and to leave their homes and their busi- 
ness for months at a time; but this was not enough. In every 
ease where the land commission confirmed a claim, the United 
States government ordered an appeal to be taken to the 
United States District Court. This was nominally an appeal, 
but really an order for a new trial. Tvery question of fact 
and law was opened anew. Witnesses were again examined ; 
the whole case was tried as in the original proceeding. There 
are two United States District Courts; one for the northern 
and another for the southern part of the state; each being the 
appellate court for all the Jands within its own jurisdiction. 
Each of these two courts had other business besides land 
suits; and in the northern district, where the most important 
cases lay, the court had almost as much admiralty business 
alone as the judges of federal districts in the Atlantic states 
have to manage. , Both these Californian district judges were 
good men. In these courts, too, the “ interests of the United 
States” were protected by able and industrious lawyers, in- 
structed to oppose the Mexican land claims to the utmost. 
Seven years have elapsed since the first case was appealed 
from the land commission, and there are now a number of 
cases still undecided in the District Courts: but in most of 
the cases decided, the claims of the Mexican grant-holders 
were confirmed a second time. The federal government, still 
not satisfied to let the claimants enter their lands, ordered ap- 
jeals to the United States Supreme Court at Washington, 
This order was not accompanied by any proper provision to 
20 
