general, in all cases where an authenticated plat of the land as surveyed under the authority of the officer acting as surveyor-general under the French, Spanish, or American governments respectively, during the time either of the said governments had the actual possession of the said territories of Orleans and Louisiana, shall not have been filed with the proper register or recorder, or shall not appear of record on the public records of the said territories of Orleans and Louisiana. The said commissioners shall also be authorized, whenever they may think it necessary, to direct the surveyor-general, or officer acting as such, to cause any tract of land already duly surveyed, to be re-surveyed at the expense of the United States. And the surveyor-general, or officer acting as such, shall transmit general and particular plats of the tracts of land thus surveyed, to the proper register or recorder, and shall also transmit copies of the said plats to the Secretary of the Treasury.
Reports of undecided claims to be regularly transmitted by commissioners to the Secretary of the Treasury.
Arrangement of claims.Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners aforesaid shall respectively report to the Secretary of the Treasury their opinion on all the claims to land within their respective districts, which they shall not have finally confirmed by the fourth section of this act. The claims shall, in the said report or reports, be arranged into three general classes, that is to say: first, claims which, in the opinions of the commissioners, ought to be confirmed in conformity with the provisions of the several acts of Congress, for ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims to land within the territories of Orleans and Louisiana; secondly, claims which, though not embraced by the provisions of the said acts, ought nevertheless in the opinion of the commissioners to be confirmed in conformity with the laws, usages, and customs of the Spanish government; thirdly, claims which neither are embraced by the provisions of the said acts, nor ought in the opinion of the commissioners to be confirmed in conformity with the laws, usages, and customs of the Spanish government; and the said report and reports being in other respects made in conformity with the forms prescribed according to law, by the Secretary of the Treasury, shall by him be laid before Congress, for their final determination thereon, in the manner and at the time heretofore prescribed by law for that purpose.
Allowances and compensations.Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That the following allowances and compensations shall be made to the several officers herein after mentioned, that is to say, to the principal deputy of the surveyor-general, for the district of Louisiana, at the rate of five hundred dollars a year, from the time he entered into the duties of his office, in addition to the fees which he is entitled to receive by law. To the register of the western district of the Orleans territory, and to the clerk of the board of commissioners for that district, one thousand dollars each, for their services as commissioners and clerk respectively, during the year one thousand eight hundred and six. To each of the deputy registers of the territory of Orleans, five hundred dollars in full, for their services subsequent to the first day of January last, in addition to the fees to which they are legally entitled. To each of the commissioners at the rate of two thousand dollars a year; to each of the clerks of the boards, and to each of the agents employed by the Secretary of the Treasury, at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars a year, and to each of the translators, at the rate of six hundred dollars a year, to commence from the first day of July next, in the district of Louisiana, and from the first day of January next, in the territory of Orleans, and to continue to the time when each board shall be respectively dissolved:Proviso. Provided, that no more than eighteen months’ compensation be thus allowed to the said commissioners, clerks, and translators, and that the compensation of any such officer absenting himself from his district, or failing to attend to the duties of his office, shall cease during such absence or failure.
Approved, March 3, 1807.