James Moore Wayne

“ It remains only for us to say a word concerning the laws and customs of Spain, supposed by the learned judge in the court below, applicable to the confirmation of this claim under the treaty. The fact that no instance is known of land so decreed having reverted to the class of public lands, for the non-performance of the condition, does not prove a custom; unless a current of cases can be shown in which claimants have held the land without performance. Besides, the existence of any such custom is disproved by the decree for the land itself ”

“ Indeed, in the last amendment of his petition, in 1835, he states he was prevented from proceeding to the further performance of the condition of said grant, by the great uncertainty in which his right and title to the land was involved by the cession.
These Florida grants, or concessions of land upon condition, have been repeatedly confirmed by this Court; and it will apply the principles of its adjudications to all cases of a like kind. It will, as it has done, liberally construe a performance of conditions precedent or subsequent, in such grants. ”

“ John's river, which continued from 1812 to the exchange of flags, had induced Governor Coppinger to declare, by a verbal order and decree, that the unsettled and disturbed state of the province, and the impossibility of the grantees of mill-grants to comply with the conditions of the same, with safety to themselves and their property, that the grantees should not, by a failure to erect their mills, forfeit their titles. ”