MEXICAN GRANTS. als 
ment is postponed for an indefinite time; the owners are 
burdened with new litigation, with indefinite deferment of 
their hopes, with increased costs; and the country is again 
cheated out of quiet titles, permanent settlers, permanent im- 
provements, and all those blessings of inestimable value which 
come only with numerous fixed and happy homes, and the 
best regulated social order. 
While the government has thus, during twelve years, not 
simply refused to confirm the land-titles granted by Mexico, 
but made bitter and unceasing war upon them, and compelled 
the claimants to bear the expense of the warfare, these claim- 
ants have had to suffer from the assaults of other and still. 
more dangerous and vexatious enemies—the squatters ; who, 
while ostensibly left without countenance by the law, were 
really often engaged in an offensive and defensive alliance 
with the officers of the government. The squatters took the 
land, occupied it, drove away the owner's cattle, cut down 
his trees, fenced in his springs, paid him no rent, paid no 
taxes, by their influence forced him to pay the taxes on the 
land they were occupying, and assessed the taxes at most ex- 
orbitant rates. This system was not rare, but frequent—it 
was practised on not one, but a hundred ranches. And then, 
with the money derived from the land thus obtained, they 
paid lawyers to appear in the name of the United States, 
contest the owner’s title, and delay a decision; and, after 
decision, to get up a contest about the survey and delay a 
settlement of the boundaries. I donot mean to say that every 
Mexican claim is good, or every squatter wrong; my purpose 
in this article is only to complain of the vast injustice done 
to the owners of honest and legally valid claims, which are the 
great majority of all presented to the courts. 
It is fourteen years since Americans became the rulers of 
California, and land-titles are no nearer a settlement than they 
should have been twelve years ago, if a proper system had been 
adopted. The great question about the boundaries, which 
should have been the main subject of action, is now just. where 
