Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 4.djvu/285

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For a violation of this provision, the person offending shall suffer a penalty of fifty dollars.

Approved, March 2, 1827.

Statute ⅠⅠ.



March 2, 1827.

Chap. LXII.An Act to increase the salary of the Postmaster General.

2,000 dollars to be paid him, annually, in addition to his present pay.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, from the first day of the present year, there shall be paid, annually, to the Postmaster General, two thousand dollars, in addition to his present salary.

Approved, March 2, 1827.

Statute ⅠⅠ.



March 3, 1827.

Chap. LXXVII.An Act for altering the times of holding the district court of the United States for the eastern district of Virginia, holden at the city of Richmond.[1]

Terms of the district court for the eastern district, changed.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the terms of the district court of the United States for the eastern district of Virginia, now directed to be holden in the city of Richmond, on the second day of April, and the fifteenth day of October, in every year, shall, in future, be held in the said city on the fifteenth day of May, and on the fifteenth day of November, annually; and that all suits, actions, and proceedings of whatever kind, now depending in, or returnable to, said court, shall be taken to be continued or returnable to the terms herein established.

Approved, March 3, 1827.

Statute ⅠⅠ.



March 3, 1827.

Chap. LXXVIII.An Act supplementary to the several acts providing for the adjustment of land claims in the state of Alabama.[2]

Course to be pursued by claimants of lands, &c. within a certain part of the former land district of Jackson Courthouse.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the claimants of lands, town lots, or out-lots, within that part of the limits of the former land district, of Jackson Courthouse, which is embraced in the state of Alabama, whose claims have been presented to the commissioners appointed to receive and examine claims and titles to lands, in said district of Jackson Courthouse, or to the register and receiver of the land office at Jackson Courthouse, acting as commissioners under the provisions of the act

  1. See notes to the act of Feb. 4, 1819, ch. 12, for a list of the acts relating to the district courts in Virginia.
  2. A concession of lands made by the Spanish authorities at Mobile in the year 1806, cannot be given in evidence in support of an ejectment in the courts of the United States, the same not having been recorded or passed upon by the board of commissioners or register of the land office established by the acts of Congress relating to land titles in that country. De La Croix v. Chamberlain, 12 Wheat. 599, 6 Cond. Rep. 659.
    It is settled doctrine of the judicial department of the government, that the treaty of 1819, with Spain, ceded to the United States no territory west of the Perdido. It had already been acquired by the Louisiana treaty. Pollard et al. v. Files, 2 Howard, 591.
    In the interval between the Louisiana treaty and the time when the United States took possession of the country west of the Perdido, the Spanish government had the right to grant permits to settle and improve by cultivation or to authorize the erection of establishments for mercantile purposes. Ibid.
    These incipient concessions are not disregarded by Congress, but are recognised in the acts of 1804, 1812, 1819, and as claims are within the act of 1824. Ibid.
    The act of 1821 gives a title to the owners of old water lots in Mobile, only where an improvement was made east of Water street, and made by the proprietor of the lot on the west side of that street, such person could not claim as riparian proprietor, or where his lot had a definite limit on the east. Ibid.
    See the case of Foster and Elam v. Neilson, 2 Peters, 253.
    See notes to the act of May 26, 1824, ch. 185, “An act granting certain lots of ground to the corporation of the city of Mobile, and to certain individuals of said city.”