374 fbdebaIj bepobtbr. �amounted only to a release by the defendant of its right, if any, to the one-half of the claim occupied by the military, and for damages for the loss or destruction of property, which is not even an admission by the United States, to whom the release was made, that the releasor, the defendant, ever had any right to either, but only that it asserted some kind of claim thereto, which it was deemed expedient to satisfy and extinguish. Bright v, Rochester, 7 Wheat. 548; Watkins v. Holman, 15 Pet. 53; CroxaU v. Shered, 5 Wall. 287; Merry- man v. Bourne, 9 Wall. 600. �Besides this, one of the plaintiffs and Bigelow, under whom the others claim, had already aequired righta in the premises under the town-site and donation acts, which con- gress could not deprive them of, even if they had been parties to this proceeding which resulted in the payment to the defendant. Congress bas the power to dispose of the public lands, and to make compensation for private property taken for public uses, but it bas not judicial power, and therefore cannot finally determine conflioting claims to land, although arising under its own grants or laws. �But, since this payment to the defendant of $20,000, there is no longer any cause for regarding it as even morally entitled to anything from the public on account of. its mis- sionary operations at The Dalles. In 1847, when the place was abandoned by the defendant, it had no market value, because, there being no white people east of the Cascade mountains, except a few Presbyterian and Eoman Catholie missionaries, there were no other purchasers for it; and, rather than let it fall into the hands of the latter, it was dis- posed of to Dr. Whitman for $600. And it appears that he was induced to make the purchase, even at that figure, as much to prevent the "priests" from getting hold of the posi- tion as anything else. In 1850, when the claim was taken by the military, it probably could not have been sold with a good title for $1,000; and even as late as 1854-5, when the town had commenced to grow,- the sum paid the defendant by the United States for the one-half of it was probably mor» than double the value of the whole of it. ��� �
