TO DIRECT THEIR EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT TO COMPLY WITH THAT OBLIGATION."

Mr. Attorney General, when he wrote the letter to which I will call your Honors' attention by and by, and when he wrote his opinion in relation to California titles in general, and the New Almaden title in particular, had not read that lesson upon national morality taught us by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now, may it please your Honors, the title being before you for judgment, the next question, and the only question which can excite any interest, or could excite any interest-in the public mind at least, and in that of the Court,-is: Whether that title was fairly acquired or not?

FABRICATED.

We have in these pleadings, repeated over and over again in the argument, the charge of FALSE; FRAUDULENT; FORGED; Not satisfied with applying all these epithets to it, it was also "antedated!" And then, as a legal conclusionfor the pleader seemed to think the Court would not see that that was the result of the charge, if made good, it was, because it was "false, forged, fraudulent and fabricated," null and of no effect.

Now, I propose, may it please the Court, very briefly-for the whole ground has been so well covered by my colleagues, that I am satisfied it is quite unnecessary-to examine into the truth of these charges.

There are some things about which the counsel on the other side and ourselves do not differ. We start from them, therefore, as common ground.

There was a man-I believe my friend on the other side admits there was such a man in existence once as Andres Castillero. There was such a man as this petitioner-and probably is now; he is not "forged;" and he is not "fabricated" for these purposes. That same man was here in 1845. He was a Mexican; conversant with the science of mining (if it be a science); anxious to show his skill; glad in that way, not only to promote his own interest, but to promote the interest of his country; and, in the latter part of 1845, he had discovered this mine. That is admitted.

MR. RANDOLPH-Discovered the quicksilver in it.

MR. JOHNSON-Well, that is the same thing. "Mine" and “quicksilver” are synonymous terms. What is his belief, may it please your Honors? That he thought it exceedingly valuable. How valuable? More valuable than the Almaden mine of Spain-and its value could hardly be counted at that time in dollars. What did he think when he discovered it? That it would be a very good thing to make it his own private property, if it could be accomplished. But he had no means of his own; and the very first step that he took, evidenced by any authentic written act, was executing a contract of partnership (which bears date November 2, 1845), by which he takes with him as partners General José Castro, Secundino and Teodoro Robles, and Padre Real.

This contract of partnership, my brother on the other side admits, was made on or about the 2d of November, 1845. It is therefore an authentic paper. What did it look to? The working of this mine. The first article says:

"Don Andres Castillero, conforming in all respects to the Ordinance of Mining, forms a regular perpetual partnership with the said persons in this form ;" and then goes on to state the terms of the partnership.

Now, he has discovered the mine; he values it highly; he enters in good faith, on the 2d of November, 1845, into a contract of partnership to work it. What else did he do, about which there can be no dispute?

He knew that there were mining laws in Mexico, in force here, under which the individual discoverer could secure to himself the mine discovered. What would he be likely to do? To proceed according to such laws. What do we say he did? Denounced and registered the mine; wrote to Mexico, where at last his title was to be confirmed; sent specimens of the ore there. What for? To prepare the authorities in whom was vested the power to confer upon him the title, for the application which he contemplated making, to get the title. He goes to Mexico; and being in Mexico, the discoverer of the mine or denouncer of the mine, what would he have done in all probability? Taken the steps in Mexico necessary to secure the title.

Where would these carry him? To the very Department of the Government of Mexico, in which we say he appeared. What would he do when he got there? Precisely what we say he did.

Well, then, it is clear, may it please your Honors; no man can doubt, because every man, placed in his condition, feels that he would have done the same thing; that the very acts, which we maintain as established upon evidence upon which the mind cannot doubt, were done by the discoverer of this mine, were the very acts that any man in his senses, situated as he was, would have done.

Now, what did he do-as we say, before he went to Mexico? An official communication, dated the 21st of April, 1846, was made by the Junta de Fomento to General Tornel, Director of the National College of Mining, sending specimens for assay with copies of Castillero's letters to Herrera and Moral. That is, before he arrived. How these are proved, I will tell the Court by-and-by. The minutes of the proceedings of the Junta Facul tativa of the College, of the 24th of April, 1846, (dated in point of fact, the 24th of March, but evidently should be dated the 24th of April), prove what I have stated.

An official communication, dated 29th of April, from Tornel, Director of the College, to Moral, President of the Junta Facultativa, acknowledges the receipt of a letter from Moral of the 24th of April, 1846, communicating the result of the assay.

In an official communication, dated the 29th of April, 1846, from Tornel, the Director of the College, to the Junta de Fomento, was communicated the result of the assay.

In an official communication, dated the 5th of May, 1846, from the Junta de Fomento to the Minister of Justice, the discovery of Castillero was made known to the President.

On the 12th of May, 1846, Castillero proposed to the Junta to contract for the working of the mine.

On the 14th of May, 1846, there was an official communication from the Junta to the Minister of Justice, announcing the original foregoing contract, and urgently recommending the President of the Republic to agree to it.

On the 20th of May, 1846, an official communication from

the Minister of Justice to the Junta de Fomento ratifies and approves said contract in all its parts.

An official communication of the 20th of May, 1846, from the Minister of Justice to the Minister of Relations, communicating the President's approval of Castillero's contract with the Junta de Fomento, and grant of two square leagues on the land of his mining possession, directs the Minister of Relations to issue the proper orders.

On the 23d of May, 1846, the orders referred to in that communication, are stated to have been issued.

On the 23d of May, 1846, in an official communication addressed by the Minister of Relations to the Governor of the Department of California, setting forth the President's approval of Castillero's contract, and grant of two square leagues on his mining possession, the Governor is ordered to put him in possession of said land?

That is the two league grant.

So your Honors see, if these things actually occurred, they are precisely what Castillero would have endeavored to obtain after making the discovery of this mine and going to Mexico —where the title, through this instrumentality, could be consummated.

Now, my brother says that these papers-and several others to which I shall have occasion to advert by-and-by-were all forged, fabricated, false, fraudulent, antedated. He says so still.

"A man convinced against his will,

Is of the same opinion still."

Now, may it please your Honors, how are you to approach the consideration of this question of fraud and falsehood upon the part of a claimant who produces evidence of the official act of a foreign Government?

In the case of Arredondo, Mr. Justice Baldwin, speaking for the Supreme Court, laid down two rules which he said were incontrovertible. The first was: That actual fraud is not to be presumed; but is to be proved. By whom? By the party who alleges it. Second: That, if the motive and design of an act may be traced to an honest, legitimate source, equally as to a corrupt one, the former should be preferred.

The United States now are for reversing these two rules. They ask us to prove in advance of other proof in relation to the production of the documents of title derived from the admitted authorities of Mexico, that they are not false, and fraudulent, and forged, and fabricated! There is no such rule known to justice or to morals. The burthen of proving the fraud is, in this case, on the Government, who asserts it. The obligation on the claimant is complied with when he produces his prima facie evidence of his title; consisting in the archives in which, he says, the title is to be found recorded; authenticated by the acts of the public officers of the Government from whom the title was derived. In this case he has gone infinitely further. He has produced here the very officers themselves, to prove that all these titles were fairly and honestly obtained. When was that done? About eighteen months ago. Before then, may it please your Honors, we had, as I think, evidence enough to have put the United States upon the inquiry as to the authenticity of our documentary title. Our Minister in Mexico, Mr. Forsyth, a man whose integrity nobody will question, had stated that he had examined into all those archives; that the copies we produce he knew to have been fairly copied from the originals on file; and that he saw-to use his own language-" no reason whatever to doubt the integrity of the entire transaction."

But the property is a large one. The title so authenticated is alleged to be defectively proved! The taint of fraud is still upon it, in the estimation of the counsel for the Government, here and in Washington. The character of these gentlemen (the claimants) is still unrelieved. Fortunately for them they had the means of producing additional evidence, calculated, as they supposed, as their counsel supposed, as everybody else supposed—except the counsel for the United States—to place the charge entirely beyond the scope of belief. They go to Mexico; they examine for themselves into the archives; they succeed, at a great expense, in inducing some of the officials who were engaged in these several offices at the time the transactions took place, to come to San Francisco with the means of identifying the truth of these documents beyond all possible