Page:Hempstead's Reports.pdf/380

Rh   # By the planting of the stone as a monument of the boundary, and the marking of trees to indicate the boundary.
 * 1) By the figurative plots of said tracts returned to and found in the land archives of said province and district.

The lands at the post were then in Lower Louisiana (proven by Stoddard), and the archives belonged to the office at New Orleans, the capital; and these plots were found in said archives in 1805, indorsed by Trudeau, the surveyor of said province; that they were received by him October 8, 1798, as appears by the certificate of Armesta; the same remained in the archives at New Orleans on the 1st March, 1808, as appears by the certified copies made on that day by Trudeau, the same person who had custody of the originals in 1798, and also in 1808; also in the records relating to said province taken to Florida on the surrender of Louisiana; the same evidence is found in 1808, and Trudeau, in April, 1808, again certifies that he took a copy of the original plot, and deposited the same among the archives; and the same remains in said office in 1848, as appears by the testimony and certificate of Bringier, the present depository thereof, under the authority of the State of Louisiana.

In 1808, June 18, the copies of said plats, of 1st and 2d of March, were produced to the board of commissioners for Louisiana and recorded in the recorder's office established by the United States at St. Louis.

At that time the whole was within the same jurisdiction; and copies from the office at New Orleans, where the originals then were, without additional authentication, were as conclusive as the originals or protocols which by law must remain among the archives, and unless shown to be antedated or fraudulent, were conclusive. White's New Recopilacion, vol.1, tit. Proofs.

Such copy, therefore, imported such verity as by law clearly entitled it to be used as evidence, and to be admitted to record by the United States recorder. Trudeau had been intrusted with the custody of these archives by the Spanish government, and they continued in his custody afterwards under the authority of the United States government; he was their lawful