Winter et al. v. United States.
solemnity, was not equivalent to a survey, nor could it in the very nature of things designate any particular or specific land, and it was, therefore, an unauthorized act, not recognized by the Spanish government.
- No usage or custom can prevail against an express law of the lawmaking power.
- Under the government of Spain, as well as by the civil law, conditions in grants were required to be performed, and were not inserted as mere matters of form.
- A grant of one million of arpens of land, at the port of Arkansas, made by the Baron de Carondelet, governor-general of Louisiana, to Elisha Winter, on the 27th of June, 1797, rejected, because the grant did not designate any particular land, and was not designated and ascertained by an authorized survey.
October, 1848.—Petition for the confirmation of a Spanish grant, determined in the District Court of the United States for the District of Arkansas, under the act of congress of the 26th of May, 1824, (4 Stat. 52,) before Benjamin Johnson, district judge. The facts of the case are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court. A translation of the concession referred to in the petition and thereto attached, was as follows:
"The Baron de Carondelet, Knight of the Religious order of St. John, Field Marshal of the Royal Armies, Governor-General and Vice Patron of the Province of Louisiana and West Florida, Inspector of the troops of the same, &c.
"Being desirous to promote the population and agriculture by all the means adapted to the political circumstances of the times, and adverting to the proposals made to the government by Elisha Winter, to the end of forming a settlement in the post of Arkansas, for the cultivation of flax, wheat, and hemp; therefore, in order to realize said object, I presently concede to said Elisha Winter one thousand arpens of land square, to William Winter five hundred arpens square, to Gabriel Winter five hundred square, and to Samuel Price, Richard Price, William Hubble, John Price, William Russell, Joseph Stetwell, and Walter Karr, fifteen arpens of land in front by forty in depth, to each of them respectively, in consideration of the good information given to me of their excellent deportment and good principles, under the express conditions, that as soon as they shall have settled themselves on their respective surveys,
