Samuel Freeman Miller

“ No other title, grant, cession, survey, or order of survey was ever issued on this claim. It was a mere permit for possession and settlement, and no more. There was here no perfected title. There was no title at all, nor any thing which purported to give title. The title remained in the Spanish government until transferred to ours; and except the part which has been patented to others, it remains there now. There is nothing on which the claimant, under the eleventh section of the act, as we understand it, is entitled to recover in this suit. ”

“ If there is any just claim in this case, it belongs to the class of imperfect, incomplete, equitable rights over which Congress has reserved control, and which could only be confirmed in the mode pointed out before the commissioners under the act of 1860. ”