Court of the United States, but a man of the most unquestioned honor. He takes this book in Washington for the purpose of preserving it, and getting it so authenticated as, if possible, to remove all doubts from the mind of the Attorney General, who had caught this "suspicious" disease. He goes to the Mexican Minister to give him an authentic certificate, that this report is what it purports to be. He keeps it.

MR. RANDOLPH-Is that certificate in evidence?

MR. JOHNSON-I do not offer it as evidence. It is there. I only want to show what Mr. Rockwell did. Mr. Benjamin speaks for himself. Here is the certificate; it speaks for itself. What did Mr. Rockwell do?

Mr. Benjamin, when did you next see that report after you gave it to Mr. Rockwell?

Well, the next time I saw it afterwards was in Washington, Mr. Rockwell showed it to me with the certificate annexed to it; I did not see it again till I saw it in San Francisco. Mr. W. E, Barron told me in New York, last July, that Mr. Rockwell had given it to him to be returned to me.

He was asked further about the book. He did not know the book had come on. All he recollected was, that he had given it to Rockwell. He wanted it here, very naturally, and he asked of Wm. E. Barron, one of the parties in this case, and who was to go on with Mr. Benjamin and myself as a friend and a client—a friend as intimately as he is a client—and Barron tells him, "Rockwell gave me the book to which I suppose you refer."

MR. RANDOLPH-Read the testimony.

MR. JOHNSON-Well, I will read the testimony. I cannot make it as strong as the witness makes it. Page 3028. He (Benjamin) says:

When I reached New York, last July, on my way to California, Mr. William E. Barron, of whom I inquired what Mr. Rockwell had done with the volume, told me he had it in his trunk; that Mr. Rockwell had given it to him to be returned

to me; and on arrival at San Francisco, Mr. Barron took it from his trunk and delivered it to me; and here it is (holding up the volume).

Now, says my brother, what do you know was done with that paper, from the time it was handed to Rockwell to the period when, in San Francisco, William E. Barron handed it to you? Why it is fourteen months

MR. RANDOLPH-Eighteen.

MR. JOHNSON—Eighteen months; still more striking, telling, and suspicious! Why, what an infinite deal of forgery can be done in eighteen months! And, may it please your Honors, awake still to the idea, carried away by the delusion—if he will permit me to say so-under which he had been laboring with reference to the original report of Lafragua, he questions my brother, a witness, to know whether in his opinion it would not have been possible, even if this book was a genuine book in relation to other matters, published at the time when it prefaces to be published, published in good faith under the instructions of the officer by whom the report purports to have been made, to have extracted from the original publication so much of it as relates to the mine; or, if there was nothing in it relating to the mine, to have taken out some of the original leaves containing other matter, and substituted there instead other leaves containing what is there now in relation to the mine! And they go into a trial of skill, as to the possibility of doing it! Mr. Benjamin says, with great simplicity, that he is not so well acquainted with the art and skill of the forger, as to believe it is probable. He thinks it is improbable. Everybody must say it is improbable.

Well now, if improbable, this report being true, what doubt can there be of the authenticity of the Mexican archives of which I spoke yesterday, if it was possible to doubt on that subject at all, without the aid of the report. The report, manuscript report, is here; all written, I have no doubt, in Mexico by my brother Billings. He got it written there in Mexico.

But, may it please your Honors, passing by these circum

stances which hardly seem to have weight enough to be worthy of serious remark-assuming now that the report is what it purports to have been, that it represents correctly the transactions which it does represent-what possible doubt can there be that there was, in 1846, a communication made to the Mexican Government by Castillero, in relation to the mine, and that all the proceedings stated in the report in relation to the action of the Mexican Government upon that application of Castillero, took place? If they did, there is an end of the controversy, as far as the authenticity of the papers is concerned. But that is not all. Let me refresh the Court's recollection as to the contents of the extracts proved by Mr. Benjamin, and proved by Lafragua; and correctly proved, as appears by the production of the copies themselves to which they each testified. I read from page 1212 of the Transcript:

SECRETARY'S OFFICE OF THE JUNTA DE FOMENTO
Y ADMINISTRATIVA OF MINING.

Most Excellent Sir:-In compliance with your Excellency's superior order of the 3d inst., directing this Junta to give an account of the matter confided to its care since the epoch of its report in 1845, their present condition, with the object in view, in order to form the Memoria which should be presented to the general Congress of the nation, immediately on its installation, the Junta has the honor to submit to your Excellency a simple historical relation of the most important matters with which it has been occupied for the last two years, and their present situation, with the reflections and recommendations which it has deemed suitable for the better and moré faithful performance of its duties.

*

*

It was Lafragua's business to make a report such as this; and amongst other objects, embraced by his official duties in that particular, were the proceedings of the Junta during the period to be covered by the report. And applying to the Junta to get information from them to enable him to make the report, he receives from the Junta a communication which I have just read in part.

Now what more did they tell him?

The Junta, on the 21st of April last, sent to the professional

Board of the College some specimens of cinnabar which Don. Tomas Ramon del Moral presented, in the name of Don Andres Castillero, a resident of Upper California, with a representation in which he asked for assistance to work a mine which he had discovered in the Mission of Santa Clara, known by the old Indians who got out of it vermilion to paint their bodies. The assay made by the Professor of Chemistry, of the ores in common, produced the extraordinary ley of thirty-five and a half per cent., which was communicated to the Government on the 5th of May, representing that Señor Castillero had been asked what assistance he required of the Junta.

The archives prove exactly that fact; that on the 5th of May he was asked-having made known to them before the discovery of the mine, and its having turned out to be a mine of extraordinary richness-to state what assistance he required to the Junta.

What do they say then?

That Señor Castillero presented his petition in due form, and it was very attentively examined by the Junta; he made his propositions, to which this (Junta) agreed, to wit, that there should then be delivered to him five thousand dollars in money, eight iron retorts of those which the Junta ordered to be made for their former examinations, and all the quicksilver flasks it has in the negociacion of Tasco.

That is true; because that is precisely the answer made by Castillero when he is asked what assistance he required. He wanted, he said, the $5000, the eight iron retorts, and all the quicksilver flasks that the Junta had in the negociacion of Tasco. What else did he do?

Señor Castillero obligated himself on his part to repay said advance in quicksilver, at the rate of one hundred dollars a quintal, within six months from his leaving the port of Mazatlan.

That is in his answer, as now spread upon the archives before your Honors. What else? They go on to say that

This agreement was approved by the Supreme Government on the 20th of the same month.

The archives tell the same story to the letter. What else?

Why was it not carried out? They show why it was not carried out.

This agreement was approved by the Supreme Government, on the 20th of the same month; but on account of the declaration (of war) made by the United States of the North, when he was going to receive the draft on Mazatlan, the ministry issued the order of September 19th of this year, directing the suspension of all payments of the branch of quicksilver except the support of the college and expenses of the office. *

That was true, too, as is proved by the archives. Now here is another extract from another part of the report. It is not the Junta still speaking, but Lafragua communicating what they have told him to the Congress, by whom the whole matter was to be examined:

In Upper California, a mine (criadero) has been discovered whose ley surpasses that of the best mine known, that of Almaden, which does not produce more than thirteen per cent., while ours, by the assays made in the College of Mining of this Capital, exceeds thirty-five and a half per cent.

Now let us turn to what the Junta itself has further said on the same subject to the Minister:

*This is not the occasion to present together all the labors of the Junta to correspond to the high confidence with which the Government has honored it. A part of them are expressed in this note, and the others may be found in the memorials, reports, and multitude of communications which are in the office of this ministry. For the present it will merely assure what is shown in these documents, to wit, that the spirit of enterprise has been so stimulated that the quicksilver mines in the principal Departments of the Republic are being worked, both by companies and also by individuals; that in the Department of San Luis Potosi, the quicksilver extracted is in proportion to the silver reduced, so that no foreign quicksilver is required; that in Upper California, in the Presidio of Santa Rosa, there has been discovered by Señor Don Andres Castillero a great mine, the leys of which are truly surprising, since the result of the assays

They had then been made. So the archives say, and so our witnesses swear.