Winter et al. v. United States.
evidence without further proof on which the granting power could act. Plots and certificates, on account of the official character of the surveyor-general, had accorded to them the force and character of a deposition. 16 Peters, 200, 201; 14 Ib. 346.
It is evident also, that a warrant or order of survey could be executed by the surveyor-general, or any deputy appointed by him; or the surveyor of the district, or by the commandant of a post, or by a private person specially authorized by the governor-general or intendant. It appears to have been at one period a common practice in Florida, for private persons to execute warrants or orders of survey by the direction of the governor, and upon these surveys formal and perfect titles were issued to the interested parties. 1 Land Laws, App. 1014, et seq.; 16 Peters, 198. In Smith v. The United States, (10 Peters, 334,) it is said that "Spain never permitted individuals to locate their grants by mere private survey. The grants were an authority to the public surveyor, or his deputy, to make the survey as a public trust, to protect the royal domain from being cut up at the pleasure of grantees. A grant might be directed to a private person, or a separate official order given to make the survey; but without either, it could not be a legal execution of the power." And in the same case it is further said, that, "neither in this nor the record of any of the cases which have been before us, have we seen any evidence of any law of Spain, local regulation, or usage, which makes a private survey operate to sever any land from the royal domain. On the contrary, all surveys which have been exhibited in the cases decided were made by the surveyor-general of the province, or his deputies, or under the special order of the governor or intendant, or those who represent them.
"No government gives any validity to private surveys of its warrants or orders of surveys, and we have no reason to think that Spain was a solitary exception even as to the general domain, by grants in the ordinary mode, for a specific quantity to be located in one place."
The supreme court of the United States, in various cases, has either directly or indirectly decided, that an actual survey of
