branches, here called bayous; the grants therefore were located in an oblong form, extending generally from ten to twenty arpents (a hundred and eighty feet the arpent) in front, by forty in depth, except in particular situations, in which the nature of the soil induced the grantee to take a greater extent back. The road runs parallel to the river, generally within the embankment, but sometimes upon it. The road, as well as the embankment are made and repaired, at the expense of the proprietor of the land, the whole extent of his front; and severe laws oblige him to the performance of this part of the police.

The expressions used in those grants to designate the boun daries and extent, are generally, I believe I may say universally, so many acres front, or front to the river, (tant d'arpents de face, or tant d'urpents face au fleuve, or sur le fleuve); and these expressions, when thus unqualified, have, without a single exception, been considered as giving the grantee a boundary on the river.

The land in question is held under one of these grants, and is described as thirty-two arpents de face sur le fleuve St. Louis;* for though the original patent (here called concession) be lost, yet we have a record of this part of its contents in the proceedings hereafter referred to.

This land was acquired by the order of Jesuits in three dif ferent purchases: one in the year 1726, from Mr. de Bienville, the governor of the province; another from the same person in the year 1728; and a third in 1743, from a Mr. Breton.

In the year 1763, the order of Jesuits was abolished in France, and all its estates forfeited to the crown. Although the province had then been ceded by France to Spain, yet as the treaty was still secret, and was not executed until six years afterwards, the edict of confiscation took place for the benefit of the crown of France, and under it the estate of the Jesuits at New Orleans was seized. These thirty-two arpents forming a part of it, were divided into six lots, and sold at auction by the same usual description, so many acres front. The part of this land adjoining the city, was purchased by persons from whom it passed, by regular conveyance, to Bertrand Gravier, who cultivated it as a plantation. In the year 1788, Bertrand Gravier divided the

* French name for the Mississippi.

front part, lying within the road, into two ranges of lots; in 1796 he enlarged the plan by adding three other streets in the rear, and at different times sold all the front and some of the rear lots to purchasers.

In these sales he describes the front lots, some of them as "fronting the levee," some as fronting the river, conformable to the plan which accompanied the deed. In some of them he expressly conveys the batture in front of lots sold, reserving, in a few instances, the right to take earth from it for his brick-kiln. Some of these deeds, conveying parts of the batture, are as early as 1788, and none of them are later than 1794.

In the year 1803, John Gravier (then become the proprietor) made an inclosure of about five hundred feet square on the batture. Prior to this, he does not appear to have interfered with a practice which the citizens of New Orleans had been in, of digging sand and earth from it. That property, however, was now becoming valuable, both from its gradual accession of height and extent, and from the growth of the town in its vicinity. Finding that the city and its inhabitants claimed as a right what he and his ancestors had only suffered from inattention, John Gravier determined to bring the pretensions of the city to a legal test. He commenced a suit for the purpose of being confirmed in his possession, and to prevent the city from troubling him with their groundless claims. This suit was pending for near two years; it was heard at three different times, and at length, by the unanimous opinion of the court, decided in favour of the plaintiff. During all this time, no suggestion was made of any title in the United States. The city alone claimed the right of servitude* on the land, and (after the suit was commenced) the right of property. Immediately after the judgment it was however discovered by the corporation, that they had been defending a false claim. Their counsel moved for a new trial, on the ground that the title was in the United States. Most of the arguments since addressed to the public to prove this position, were then urged to the court, but without success; the judgment was confirmed and executed in the month of June,

1807.

* Servitude in the sense here used, in the civil law, is equivalent to the right of commonage for digging earth at the common law.

One of Gravier's vendees beginning to improve the property, was for some time impeded by a tumultuous assemblage of people, who, however, did not very long continue to oppose violence to the laws. He was suffered to proceed, and after he had expended upwards of thirteen thousand dollars in improvements, and a much larger sum in new purchases, a mandate arrived from Washington, ordering the marshal of the district to dispossess him by force. When astonishment and incredulity were forced to yield to the certainty of this extraordinary fact, the proprietor presented a petition to the superior court, and prayed their interference to prevent the execution of this illegal order; it was granted, and an injunction was delivered to the marshal, commanding him to desist from the execution of the mandate. This writ was however disregarded; an armed force was collected, and the proprietor was forced to abandon his possession; and from that time to the present, he has been employed in ineffectual attempts to obtain relief.

This is a general sketch as well of the situation of the property, as of the title by which it is held, and of the events which led to the controversy. It is but an outline which will be filled up in discussing the different points made by Mr. Jefferson to justify the conduct which he presumes to call," Proceedings of the Government of the United States."

After some preliminary observations, which shall be noticed under their proper heads, the author enters on his subject. Its first division is an attack on the title of one proprietor in favour of others. This objection was with propriety raised on the trial of the cause at New Orleans; though unfounded in fact, it was not there absurd in its application, as it is when used by Mr. Jefferson. The only questions which it imports him to discuss are, Did the land belong to the United States? Had the government a right to seize it? Now whether belonging to Gravier, or sold to the front proprietors, the land was in neither case the property of the United States; and its seizure was equally unjustifiable.

The objection, I have said, was raised on the trial, and the report of the case shews it to have been conclusively answered. Gravier claimed the alluvion, because he was the proprietor to the water's edge; and he claimed to be the proprietor to the water's edge, by virtue of the general expressions, " face sur le fleuve,”

which it is not denied give that extent to all the grants in the country. Having, after a very considerable accretion had been gained by alluvion to his land, sold a line of lots along the road, which I have described as running within the levee, it was con. tended that because some of the deeds for these lots used nearly the same expression, face au fleuve, that is fronting To the river, not as in ours, fronting on the river, a similar construction ought to be given to the expressions in both instruments, and the dilemma which the author urges with so much triumph, was, like most of his arguments, worn out before he took it into his service. The answer to this argument was a concise one. It was, that in the cases where these expressions were used in the deeds of the front proprietors, they were not, as in the case of our grant used alone, that they were restricted by a reference to the plan, and that this plan bounded the lots, not by the river, but by a line drawn across their front on the street; and an uncontrovertible text of law was cited to shew, that wherever such a boundary line existed between the land and the river, the proprietor of the lot could not claim the alluvion, for the plain reason, that he was not the proprietor to the water's edge, and that therefore, what was added by the water was not added to his land, but to the land which lay between his front boundary and the river. This explanation the late president of the United States does not like; it is compendious, he says, but not clear; it wants explanation, and, to use his own phrase, he "spreads it open" for examination; he selects one of the deeds, that to Nicholas Gravier. It conveys two parcels of lots, one of thirteen, fronting the river, and another of forty-five, in the rear, by other boundaries, " in conformity to the plan." Then follows a page of reasoning to shew, that the words, in conformity to the plan, do not relate to the thirteen lots in the front, but to the forty-five in the rear; and on what, reader, do you think this reasoning is founded? Would you believe it?-on the omission of a troublesome word. The original is explicit; after describing both parcels of lots, it says, "THE WHOLE (todo) in conformity with the plan; which having been drawn by Don C. L. Trudeau, I have delivered to the purchaser," &c. It must be confessed, that for a man who wanted to shew that the reference to the plan was applicable only to a part of the lots, this expression, "THE WHOLE," "ALL," was the most embarrassing that could be

devised. What was to be done? Preserve it in the original Spanish, which not one in a thousand of his readers can understand; omit it in the translation, which every body will suppose accurate in so learned a work; and then argue from the omission, that the reference to the plan related to back lots only.* Of some of my reasoning the late president says, "that it is impossible to characterise it respectfully." What shall we say to this specimen of his own?

The whole argument on this head is of a piece. The sale to N. Gravier is selected, as if those to all the other proprietors contained the same expressions; whereas, a very great proportion refer for their front, not to the river, but to the levee; (haciendo frente a la levee de este rio) and among these is the deed to Mr. Poydras, who, in one of his publications, has the effrontery to say, "My deed of conveyance expressly contains these terms, fronting the river, without any reservation."

In several others the batture is expressly granted, and I have purchased from the grantees. I have paid ten thousand seven hundred dollars for parts of it, which were thus sold; and yet this, as well as the other, has been taken as the demesne of the United States. Now Mr. Jefferson (to return him his dilemma) either knew that this description, contained in the deed to N. Gravier, was not that used in the others, or he did not know it; if he knew it, he is unpardonable in concealing from the public, to whom he affects to make a candid appeal, so material a difference. If he did not know it, he confesses that he has deprived a citizen of his property, without being acquainted with the nature of his title. He must take one of these consequences, or he must acknowledge that the circumstance is totally immaterial to the issue. If material, the whole evidence ought to have been offered;-if immaterial, no part of it.

I think I may therefore dismiss this first head of justification, and that I may, without flattering myself, believe that I have shewn it both immaterial to the defence of the late president, and destitute of any foundation if material;—I have shewn that none of those front proprietors can be considered as owners of the alluvion, because their deeds refer to the plan, which does not carry them to the river; because very many of them refer not to the river, but to the levee, as their front exposure; and because those * See Jefferson, p. 7