Page:United States v. Samperyac.pdf/20

Rh  Rh   been able to ﬁnd no case where the doctrine has been applied to bills of review. Perhaps it may be because no such case exists, and that this is the ﬁrst where a bill of review has ever been taken pro confesso. But the principle applies with equal force and propriety to the latter as to the former. The allegations of this bill are, that the title papers are forged and spurious, and that the witness who proved them committed perjury. These allegations, when admitted, destroy the evidence upon which the former decree was based, are distinct and positive in their nature, and justify a decree without additional proof. But admitting that the doctrine applicable to original bills, in relation to the effect of taking a bill pro confesso, ought not to be applicable to bills of review, still we are of opinion that the evidence adduced in this case is full and conclusive to prove that the title papers upon which the former decree was based are forged, fraudulent, and spurious. Let us advert to the evidence: Hilary B. Cenas, register of the land-office at New Orleans, states, in his deposition, that he has instituted a careful search among the Spanish records under his charge, particularly in a book entitled Register de los primeros decretos de concesion; in which book it was customary to enter any order of survey, as it was ﬁrst made, from the year 1786 up to 1799, inclusive, and could not ﬁnd any order of survey of lands in favor of, or granted to, Celestine Armon in the District of Arkansas.

He further says that he has examined the form of orders of survey, as sworn to by Judge Tessier and Jean Mercier, the register of mortgages in New Orleans, and found it to correspond with the orders of survey of record in his office; that he has compared the signatures afﬁxed to orders of survey, upon which Messrs. Tessier and Mercier have given their depositions in the cases of the United States against the persons named in said depositions, and that he verily believes that they are false and counterfeit. By consent of parties, this deposition was read in this case, to prove the same facts in relation to the order of survey in favor of Samperyac. Isaac T. Preston, late register of the land-office at New Orleans, asserts that he has examined the papers annexed to the depositions of Jean Mercier and Charles Tessier, in the cases in which they have