David Davis

“ It is fair to infer from this record that Roland was an intelligent man, and knew the limit of the governor's power to grant lands, and the corrective applied by the Departmental Assembly when he exceeded his authority. If so, he knew Pico had no right to make the eleven-league grant, because he had already conceded to him the undivided half of four leagues, in July, 1845. ”

“ It is a little singular, if Pico's signatures to the papers produced by the claimant are authentic, that they should differ so materially from his signatures to public documents of that date. In Luco v. The United States, [2] the same differences existed, and the court adopted the conclusion that they were not genuine. If these inequalities in Pico's signatures create distrust as to their genuineness, the different phraseology in describing the land in the borrador, from that used in the titulo, increases the distrust in the authenticity of this title. ”

“ Roland v. United States
The haste and recklessness, to use no harsher term, with which this grant was made, cannot but suggest grave doubts of the bon a fides of the transaction. It nowhere appears that Roland had any claim on the bounty of the Mexican nation, or ability, or intention to occupy so large a tract of country; any yet Pico, near the time when power passed from his hands, in the midst of civil commotion, disregarding the customary and established modes of making concession of the public domain to meritorious persons; without an informe; without a map ”