John Archibald Campbell

“ It is a general principle of equity, to grant a decree of specific performance only in cases where there is a mutuality of obligation, and when the remedy is mutual, and that it will not be rendered in favor of one who has been guilty of an unreasonable delay in fulfilling his part of the engagement, or who has slept for a lengthened period on his rights, and comes forward at last, when circumstances have changed in his favor, to enforce a stale demand. ”

“ There is no expediente in the archives to show the segregation of this island from the public domain, nor report to the Departmental Assembly or the Supreme Government to testify that a citizen had been enlisted, 'to give impulse to the progress of agriculture in the country.' There was no delivery of judicial possession, nor any other assertion of right, by which the inhabitants could be charged with notice of this claim. A great change has taken place in the condition of the country; and other persons have assumed to settle and improve the land, which the applicant failed to do. ”

“ The only explanation for the laches of the applicant is found in the testimony of the witnesses Castro and Combs, who say: 'The whole of the region of country of the Sacramento above Sutter's fort, or New Helvetia, was not in a situation to be settled upon by individual grantees, owing to the hostilities of the Indians;' 'that the Indians were numerous and hostile.'
But this fact existed at the date of the decree in 1841, and will account for the abandonment of the purpose, that the applicant seems to have entertained at one time, of making a settlement. ”