Page:United States v. Samperyac.pdf/6

Rh  Rh   Louisiana were limited as to jurisdiction and quantity. They were authorized and empowered by the laws, usages, and customs of the Spanish government to grant lands not exceeding one league square, in the Province of Louisiana, which commenced at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and extended back so as to include all Upper and Lower Louisiana.

On the same day, the 19th December, 1827, the superior court, held by Benjamin Johnson and William Trimble, judges, on the foregoing testimony, decreed the conﬁrmation of the said grant to Bernardo Samperyac, as for four hundred arpens of land, and the decree was recorded, and no appeal taken from it by the United States within one year.

One hundred and thirty other cases before the same court, against the United States, in the names of different claimants, were conﬁrmed for four hundred arpens of land each, on the same testimony, and decrees entered and recorded, and from which no appeals were taken.

On the 14th of February, 1828, Samperyac transferred his claim by deed to John J. Borrie; and in December, 1828, Joseph Stewart, it was admitted on the part of the United States, purchased the claim from John J. Borrie by deed, for a valuable consideration, and in good faith; by virtue of which purchase, Stewart entered at the Little Rock land-ofﬁce, on the 13th of December, 1828, the north-east quarter of seventeen, the east half of south-east quarter of seventeen, and the west half of north-east quarter of thirteen; all in township eleven, south of range twenty-six west, containing 320 acres, relinquishing the overplus of twenty acres; and obtained the certificate of entry of Bernard Smith, the register thereof.

On the 10th of April, 1830, the United States, by Samuel C. Roane, their attorney for the Territory of Arkansas, filed in the superior court, by leave thereof, their bill of review against Bernardo Samperyac, setting out the proceedings in the foregoing case, and alleging that the original decree was obtained by fraud and surprise; that the petition and order of survey were forged; that Hebrard, the witness in the cause, committed the crime of perjury; that the order of survey was never signed by Miro, governor of Louisiana, as it purported to have been, and