Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 2.djvu/477



said corporation shall within six months after passing this act, relinquish and release any claim they may have to such commons beyond the distance of six hundred yards aforesaid: Provided also, that the corporation shall reserve for the purpose, and convey gratuitously for the public benefit, to the company authorized by the legislature of the territory of Orleans, as much of the said commons as shall be necessary to continue the canal of Carondelet from the present basin to the Mississippi, and shall not dispose of, for the purpose of building thereon, any lot within sixty feet of space reserved for a canal, which shall for ever remain open as a public highway: And provided also, that nothing herein contained, shall be construed to affect or impair the rights of any individual or individuals to the said commons, which are derived from any grant of the French of Spanish government.

. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners appointed or to be appointed for the purpose of ascertaining the rights of persons claiming land in the territories of Orleans and Louisiana, shall have full powers to decide according to the laws and established usages and customs of the French and Spanish governments, upon all claims to lands within their respective districts, where the claim is made by any person or persons, or the legal representative of any person or persons, who were on the twentieth of December, one thousand eight hundred and three, inhabitants of Louisiana, and for a tract not exceeding the quantity of acres contained in a league square, and which does not include either a lead mine or a salt spring, which decision of the commissioners when in favour of the claimant shall be final, against the United States, any act of Congress to the contrary notwithstanding.

. And be it further enacted, That the time fixed by the act above mentioned, and by the acts supplementary to the same, for delivering to the proper register or recorder, notices in writing and the written evidences of claims to land, be, and the same is hereby extended, for the territories of Orleans and Louisiana, till the first day of July, one thousand eight hundred and eight, and persons delivering such notices and evidences shall be entitled to the same benefit as if the same had been delivered within the time limited by the former acts; but the rights of such persons as shall neglect so doing within the time limited by this act, shall, so far as they are derived from or founded on any act of Congress, ever after be barred and become void, and the evidences of their claims never after admitted as evidence in any court of law or equity whatever.

. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners appointed or to be appointed for the purpose of ascertaining the rights of persons claiming lands in the territories of Orleans and Louisiana, shall respectively transmit to the Secretary of the Treasury and to the surveyor-general, or officer acting as surveyor-general, transcripts of the final decisions made in favour of claimants by virtue of this act, and they shall deliver to the party a certificate stating the circumstances of the case, and that he is entitled to a patent for the tract of land therein designated, which certificate shall be filed with the proper register or recorder, within twelve months after date. And the register or recorder shall thereupon (a plat of the tract of land therein designated, being previously filed with him or transmitted to him by the officer acting as surveyor-general in the manner herein after provided,) issue a certificate in favour of the party, which certificate being transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, shall entitle the party to a patent, to be issued in like manner as is provided by law for the issuing of patents for public lands lying in other territories of the United States.

. And be it further enacted, That the tracts of land thus granted by the commissioners shall be surveyed at the expense of the parties, under the direction of the surveyor-general, or officer acting as a