gardens, and vineyards, and on cultivated fields of the Vallejo grantees.  They then filed claims in the Land Office as pre-emptioners, under the general land laws of the United States, and insisted that, as their settlements were previous to the act of Congress, their rights to the land were secure.  In this view Julian, when he came to California, encouraged them, and, as was generally reported and believed, in consideration of a portion of the land to be given to him in case of success, undertook to defend their possessions.[1]

When Frisbie applied, under the provisions of the act of Congress, for a patent to the land, a man named Whitney, one of the squatters, protested against its issue, on the ground that under the pre-emption laws he, Whitney, having settled upon the land, had acquired a vested right, of which Congress could not deprive him.  But the Land Department took a different view of the matter and issued the patent to Frisbie.  Whitney thereupon commenced a suit against Frisbie in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to have him declared a trustee of the land thus patented, and to compel him, as such trustee, to execute a conveyance to the complainant.  The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia decided the case in favor of Whitney, and ordered Frisbie to execute a conveyance; but on appeal to the Supreme Court the decision was reversed; and it was held that a pre-emptioner did not acquire any vested right as against the United States by making his settlement, nor until he had complied with all the requirements of the law, including the payment of the purchase-money; and that until then Congress could reserve the land from settlement, appropriate it to the uses of the government, or make any other disposition thereof which it pleased.  The court, therefore, adjudged that the Suscol act was valid, that the purchasers from Vallejo had the first right of entry, and that Frisbie was accordingly the owner of the land purchased by him.  Soon after the decision was rendered Julian rose in his seat in the House of Representatives and denounced it as a second Dred Scott decision, and applied to the members of the court remarks that were anything but complimentary.  It so happened that previous to this decision a similar suit had been decided in favor of Frisbie by the Supreme Court of California, in which a very able and elaborate opinion was rendered by the Chief Justice.  I did not see the opinion until long after it was delivered, and had nothing whatever to do with it; but in some way or other, utterly inexplicable to me, it was rumored that I had been consulted by the Chief Justice with respect to that case, and that the decision had been made through my instrumentality.  With this absurd rumor Hastings, after he had been disbarred by Judge Hoffman, went on to Washington.  There he joined Julian; and after concocting a long series of charges against Judge Hoffman and myself, he placed them in Julian’s hands, who took charge of them with alacrity.  The two worthies were now to have their vengeance—­Hastings for his supposed personal grievances and Julian for the Suscol decision which injured his pocket.