Samuel Nelson

“ Berreyesa, indeed, asked for the valley, 'with all the lomas or hills that pertained to it.' Larios was less ambitious. His grant says nothing of hills at all, and is for the land called 'Los Capitancillos,' the name by which the valley was itself familiarly known. The Californians were a primitive and pastoral people. What they most desired were valleys inclosed by hills, so that without fences their cattle could never stray. The mountains themselves were of comparatively little use, if, as we may assume, the valley had pasturage enough. ”

“ The western boundary is a well-known natural object, the Arroyo Seco-a creek. The southern, the Sierra, or mountain range; and no boundary on the north. The grant was of quantity, and of necessity this boundary must be determined by the limitation of that quantity between the lines given. It is true, in the second condition of the grant it is said, the judge who shall give possession of the land shall have it measured in conformity to law, leaving the sobrante, the surplus, to the nation. But this is a formal condition, to be found, for aboundant caution, in every Mexican grant. ”

“ We know what is meant when a person speaks of sunrise and sunset, although it be true, astronomically, that the sum neither rises nor sets. For all the purposes of common life, the whale is called a fish, though natural history tells us that he belongs to another order of animals. If these parties asked for the Ca nada de los Capitancillos, meaning to include all the land up to the Azul Mountains, and the Governor understood that he was granting all the land to these mountains, it matters not whether, properly, it was all valley land, or all mountain land. ”

“ But we do not intend to place any particular stress upon this view, for we hold that it is not competent for the court to depart from its own decree in the exercise of the power conferred by the act of the 14th June, 1860. The duty enjoined is not a rehearing of the decree on its merits, it is not execute it, to fix the lines on the ground in conformity with the decree entered in the case. The decree is not only the foundation of the validity of the grant, but of the proceedings in the survey and location of land confirmed. ”

“ For months he has been kept running over the hills, measuring every height and chaining every hollow, and making maps and diagrams of all the ranches for fifteen miles around. At one time you hear of him at the top of Mount Umunhum, four thousand feet up toward the sky. The next thing you know, he is down in some dark hollow, measuring away at something else, but always as far as he can possibly get from the line in dispute. One day he is off ten miles to the east of Berreyesa, and then again he is surveying a rancho somewhere north of the Pueblo Hills, clean out of sight of this region. ”

“ The land we are claiming never belonged to this Government. It was private property, under a grant made long before our war with Mexico. When the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo came to be ratified-at the very moment when Mexico was feeling the sorest pressure that could be applied to her by the force of our armies and the diplomacy of our statesmen she utterly refused to cede her public property in California, unless upon the express condition that all private titles should be faithfully protected. ”

“ We reject the words, 'a little more or less,' as having no meaning in a system of location and survey like that of the United States, and that the claim of the grantee is valid for the quantity clearly expressed. If the limitation of the quantity had not been so explicitly declared, it might have been proper to refer to the petition and the dise no, or to have inquired if the name, Capitancillos, had any significance as connected with the limits of the tract, in order to give effect to the grant. ”

“ What do we see then in nature and on the dise no? Standing at the junction of the creeks we see in nature, as we look across the valley, the great heights of Mount Umunhum or the west, and the greater heights of Mount Bache on the east. They are the great features of the landscape. The way in which they raise their lofty heads will be urged as an argument by Mr. Black why the Azul Range, as distinguished from the inferior hills below them, was THE Sierra of the grant. ”

“ Every survey, official and unofficial, public and private, has concurred. All agree that the line starts at the spot, is on the course, and terminates at the place where we say it does. No surveyor, with the grants and the dise nos in his hand, could fail to find the place of beginning; no one could miss seeing the eastern base of the lomita; nor was it possible for human perversity not to perceive that the terminus of the line was the foot of the great Sierra. ”

“ That was what we gained by the promise to protect men in the situation of Justo Larios, their children, their alienees, and others deriving title through them. It is impossible that, in this nation, they will ever be plundered in the face of such a pledge. ”

“ II. If an appeal does lie-if the case is properly here-the United States have a right to come and show the errors of the decree, even though no appeal was taken by them. They were parties to the cause in the court below; they are parties here; brought here. No appeal is needed, and if any were needed, it could yet be taken.
III. We are not concluded by either of the decisions of this court so largely quoted in the statement. The decision in the first case was, that the grant was not of the valley as a valley, but of one league in the valley ”

“ Larios was living in this part of the valley. No tract of one league, not very irregular in shape, could include the Mining Ridge without excluding nearly all the land along the base of the Pueblo Hills. The maps, moreover, reversed the ordinary law which governs the construction of maps, and make the top represent the south, the bottom the north, the right the west, and the left the east; hence, an inference that the point from which everything was viewed was the north edge of the valley. An experiment showed, also, that the dise nos of Berreyesa and of Larios were much the same in size ”

“ At the time these claimants took possession of the tract, they supposed they were entitled to a larger quantity of land than one league,-nearly two leagues,-which would have carried this line over and beyond these possessions. But this court cut down the quantity to one league, and hence these possessions are, with the exception of the old house of Larios, necessarily excluded. It is also said that sales were made to third persons in the valley outside of the line, and that their title should be protected. ”

“ It was by this assurance, thus solemnly given, that we won the reluctant consent of Mexico to part with California. It gave us a domain of more than imperial grandeur. Besides the vest extent of that country, it has natural advantages such as no other can boast. Its valleys teem with unbounded fertility, and its mountains are filled with inexhaustible treasures of mineral wealth. The navigable rivers run hundreds of miles into the interior, and the coast is indented with the most capacious harbors in the world. The climate is more healthful than any other on the globe ”

“ It is the only thing on any map called a Sierra at all. It is 'the Sierra,' therefore, of the case. How irrelative all evidence about geologic or topographic natures in the face of designations given and fixed by the very parties concerned!
Then a reference to the dise no shows that the L-i-n-d-e-r-o is brought over or through the Mining Range to the Sierra Azul. This dotted line was meant to divide between Larios and Berreyesa land which, between them, they, and not the Mexican Government, owned. It is absurd to suppose anything else. We must presuppose a grant ”

“ As to the southern boundary. Our interests here are identical with those of Larios; and we leave a reply to the Government counsel on this point with counsel who follow.
Mr. Black, with whom was Mr. Cushing, for Fossat, representative of Larios, seeking to reverse the decree, and re-establish the line as run by the Surveyor-General.
I. The Government doubts and denies the right of any appeal. When a doubt exists about the right of a citizen to appeal, that doubt is always to be resolved in favor of the right. ”

“ The house of Berreyesa is proved to be exactly thirty feet wide, yet it occupies upon the map one-fifth of the space of the whole valley. If the valley is proportioned to the house, it is only one hundred and fifty feet wide. ”

“ It will enrich a report and encourage a reader. I shall not, however, go into the profundities of Castilian lore; the more as it is shown that neither Larios, Berreyesa, nor the Prefect probably, had the Spanish dictionary, dedicated to Don Philip V, and printed at Madrid in the year 1732, near them when they settled the L-i-n-d-e-r-o. It is not likely either that they were better acquainted with Martin, Cadalso, or even Jovellanos, charming poets though they all be. Admit that falda does mean skirt. ”

“ As it is with elevations of the earth's surface, so it is with bodies of water; they may be connected together without being the same thing. The Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea are connected together at the Straits of Gibraltar ”

“ In nature, less than one mile in length lay eastward of the division based on the L-i-n-d-e-r-o, and over four and a half miles lay to the westward; whereas, the part of the ridge represented on Berreyesa's dise no as lying to the westward of the line, would be but five-sixths of a mile, and all the rest was east, on Berreyesa's own land. ”