as such,
with the change of sovereignty, became the public property of the United States. Under that behef they came with their famiUes, household goods and cattle, feeling certain that an abundance of valuable agricultural land was to be had for the taking. Therefore, w^hen on arrival they found all the best arable lands covered by enormous grants to the Mexi- cans and others ; that their government had neglected to carry out treaty stipulations to determine the valid- ity of those claims ; that the lands of native Cali- fornians even were daily wrested from them by com- binations of squatters and thievish lawyers, they were greatly disappointed and naturally indignant. Then it was that breaking down all hedge-rows of law and logic, they struck the bold decision that these preten- tious ten-league land-holders were usurping monopo- lists, who, like savages, unjustly held from advancing civilization broad areas of God's earth for which they had paid nothing, had no use, and to which they had no right. Nor were there lacking lawyers and politi- cal demagogues ever ready at hand to feed the fire of their unjust anger and prey upon their pre- judices.
The immigrants complained in a memorial to con- gress, forwarded in December 1849, when social quiet was most disturbed by the squatter excitement, that they had come hither in the belief that their govern- ment had purchased this territory from Mexico, and that they had the right to preempt and settle upon lands here as in any other part of the public domain. But, instead of possessing that right they had found themselves to be trespassers, subject to the extortion- ate demands of pretended owners. Denied them was the privilege to pitch a tent, to plant, to build, to occupy. There is scarcely a spot fit for a settlement, town-site, or farm, said they, that is not crossed with Mexican titles or Spanish grants, and held by the possessors for speculative purposes, greatly to the in- jury of bona fide settlers. Thirty miles squar
