Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 4.djvu/454



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all the claims to lands reported by the register and receiver of the land office for the district of Jackson courthouse, in the state of Mississippi, under the provisions of the act of Congress, approved on the twenty-fourth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, entitled “,” as founded on any order of survey, requette, permission to settle, or other written evidence of claim derived from the Spanish authorities, which ought, in the opinion of the said register and receiver, to be confirmed, and which, by the said reports, appear to be derived from the Spanish government prior to the twentieth of December, one thousand eight hundred and three, and the land claimed to have been cultivated and inhabited on or before that day, shall be confirmed in the same manner as if the title had been completed: Provided, That, in all such claims, where the plat and certificate of survey, made prior to the fifteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, under the authority of the Spanish government, in pursuance of such claim, has not been filed with the said register and receiver, such claim shall not be confirmed to any one person for more than twelve hundred and eighty acres; and that for all the other claims comprised in the reports as aforesaid, and which ought, in the opinion of the register and receiver, to be confirmed, the claimant to such land shall be entitled to a grant therefor, as a donation not to exceed twelve hundred and eighty acres to any one person: And provided also, That the claim of the representatives of Louis Boisdore, numbered four, in report numbered three, shall not be confirmed to more than twelve hundred and eighty acres; and all the confirmations of the said incomplete titles and grants of donations, hereby provided to be made, shall amount only to a relinquishment for ever, on the part of the United States, of any claim whatever to the tract of land so confirmed or granted without prejudice to the interests of third persons.

. And be it further enacted, That every person, or his or her legal representatives, whose claim is embraced by the said register and receiver in their reports numbers five, six, and seven, of actual settlers, or their legal representatives, not having any written evidence of claim, shall, where it appears by the said reports that the land claimed or settled on had been actually inhabited and cultivated by such person or persons, in whose right the same is claimed, on or before the fifteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, be entitled to a grant for the land so claimed or settled on, as a donation: Provided, That not more than one tract shall be granted to any one person, and the same shall not exceed six hundred and forty acres, to include his or her improvements, and to be bounded by sectional or divisional lines; and that no lands shall be thus granted which are claimed or recognised by the preceding section.

. And be it further enacted, That every person, or his or her legal representatives, comprised in the aforesaid reports of actual settlers, not having any written evidence of claim, who, on the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, did, as appears by those reports, actually inhabit and cultivate a tract of land in the said district, not claimed under any written evidence of title legally derived from the French, British, or Spanish, governments, or granted as a donation, shall be entitled to become the purchaser of the quarter section, or two eighths of any section, on which the improvements may be, and including the same, at the same price for which other public lands are sold at private