The Supreme Court of the State, without considering the reasons thus assigned in the case in Plowden, adopted its conclusion; and as the gold and silver in the British realm are there held to belong to the Crown, it was concluded, on the hypothesis that the United States have no municipal sovereignty within the limits of the State, that they must belong in this country to the State.  The State, therefore, said the court, “has solely the right to authorize them” (the mines of gold and silver) “to be worked; to pass laws for their regulation; to license miners; and to affix such terms and conditions as she may deem proper to the freedom of their use.  In the legislation upon this subject she has established the policy of permitting all who desire it to work her mines of gold and silver, with or without conditions, and she has wisely provided that their conflicting claims shall be adjudicated by the rules and customs which may be established by bodies of them working in the same vicinity.”—­(3 Cal., 220.)

The miners soon grasped the full scope of this decision, and the lands of private proprietors were accordingly invaded for the purpose of mining as freely as the public lands.  It was the policy of the State to encourage the development of the mines, and no greater latitude in exploration could be desired than was thus sanctioned by the highest tribunal of the State.  It was not long, however, before a cry came up from private proprietors against the invasion of their possessions which the decision had permitted; and the court was compelled to put some limitation upon the enjoyment by the citizen of this right of the State.  Accordingly, within two years afterwards, in Stoakes vs.  Barrett, (5 Cal., 37,) it held that although the State was the owner of the gold and silver found in the lands of private individuals as well as in the public lands, “yet to authorize an invasion of private property in order to enjoy a public franchise would require more specific legislation than any yet resorted to.”

The spirit to invade other people’s lands, to which the original decision gave increased force against the intention of its authors, could not be as easily repressed as it was raised in the crowd of adventurers, who filled the mining regions.  Accordingly, long before I went on the bench, the right to dig for the precious metals on the lands of private individuals was stoutly asserted under an assumed license of the State.  And afterwards, in the case of Biddle Boggs vs.  The Merced Mining Co., which came before the court in 1859, where the plaintiff claimed under a patent of the United States, issued upon the confirmation of a Mexican grant, the existence of this license was earnestly maintained by parties having no connection with the government, nor any claim of title to the land.  Its existence was, however, repudiated by the court, and speaking for it in that case I said:  “There is gold in limited quantities scattered through large and valuable districts, where the land