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338   Kent, J. Blunt, John Sergeant, and B. F. Butler, pronouncing the claim valid and the title complete.

But the fact that a claim of such magnitude, and thus apparently formal and regular as to muniments of title, should be allowed to sleep more than half a century, is a strong circumstance against its validity, and, on the familiar principle of lapse of time, ought to be almost conclusive against it.

The United States, by S. H. Hempstead, district attorney, answered the petition, denying its allegations and the validity of the claim, and demanded strict proof thereof.

On the 22d of June, 1847, the petition was dismissed for want of prosecution, and a motion to reinstate it, made subsequently, was overruled.

Daniel Ringo and F. W. Trapnall, for petitioners.

S. H. Hempstead, district attorney, for the United States.

HISTORY OF THE CLAIM, by James H. Piper, acting Commissioner of the general land-office.—This was a French claim for four leagues square of land, Paris measure, lying on the Arkansas River, in the present State of Arkansas.

The petitioner represents himself as a subject of the king of the French, resident in the city of Paris, France, and as grandson and heir of John Law, "formerly director-general of the Company of the Indies, and controller-general of the finances of the king of France;" that in A.D. 1718, the Company of the Indies, "to whom the former colony of Louisiana, including that which is now the State of Arkansas, belonged, in full property conceded and granted, to the ancestor of the petitioner, the aforesaid John Law, a tract of land of four leagues square, Paris measure, lying on the river Arkansas, in the now State of Arkansas," &c.; that it was granted allodially, "upon certain