that this presumption, with the facts, must inevitably lead to the conclusion and decision he sought to obtain, and so, not suspecting any thing wrong or sinister in this Birch proceeding, but assuming that all had been done in good faith, that, with Hardin's application, dated 1st September, the money had been handed over or actual tender of it made, and that all this had been done before any pre-emption act had been performed. We held, upon an uncontradicted and universal principle, the right of the first applicant to be clear, and so decided.— (Letter dated April 21, 1857, copy I.)

Birch's report that "the press of business" deferred the renewal of Hardin's entry from the 1st to the 8th is feigned and deceptive, there having been, in fact, only two entries admitted at the Plattsburg office on the 1st of September, 1856, as the returns for that month show, and it now turns out that he approached the department, by this statement of the 3d of March, 1857, under the guise of the Hardin case, for another and very different purpose; that his real object was, in this clandestine manner, to obtain such a decision as would not only recognize his wholesale doings of the day previous, involving vast interests about which he was concerned, but very specially the actual claim of his own son, to whom, on the day before, to wit, the 2d of March, 1857, the day of the conspiracy, he had awarded, so far as his informal and unauthorized certificate of that date could do it, more than 30,000 acres of the public lands, without payment at the time of a single cent to the government, nor doing any lawful act in the premises until after other valid rights had intervened, which he now seeks to destroy.

This is the Hardin case-now suspended for further investigation to test the facts-in which, when acted upon in April, 1857, we had an uncontradicted prima facie case submitted; 1st. In Birch's report of 3d March, 1857, that Hardin's "original application" had been filed on 1st September; 2d. With the legal presumption the money had been actually tendered or paid on that day, because we could not understand otherwise, for Birch, when he prepared said report, had before him the law and the instructions, dated October 12, 1856, making such payment or tender indispensable to the validity of an entry; and, last, Birch's declaration that the delay to the 8th September was caused at the local office, and, of course, not by the applicant. So, our decision of 21st April, 1857, followed, holding that Hardin's application, thus appearing the first and in due and legal form, was good against a subsequent and worthless pre-emption, for who could doubt that a party had acquired a vested right, if he had done all the law exacted of him, and the delay was solely the act of the register and receiver, when it appears they could have consummated the entry on the day of application, as it is found there was then actually no press of business, only two entries having been admitted on that day. Birch now claims this 40 acre Hardin entry, under such circumstances as the precedent, to cover up and affirm his unlawful wholesale monopoly proceedings of the 2d March, 1857, when he had chosen to open the office after shutting and opening it to suit his purposes, and attempted, as has been shown, in disregard of the requirements of law, to distribute immense bodies of the public lands, almost exhaust

ing the land district, in disposing thereof by preference to his own relatives and favorites, as illustrated by the informal paper hereinbefore mentioned, not only unknown to law and instructions, but in disregard of both, and the averments of which, as to priority, on behalf of the speculators over the emigrant actual settlers, being not only disapproved, but its falsity established, not by parol or aliunde testimony, but by the highest possible evidence, the record itself, verified by the official signatures of both Birch, register, and the receiver, that again verified by each one of the "original applications" signed by Birch, jr., and by the memoralists, each for himself, and each one and all again attested by the register and receiver as aforesaid, fixing dates, and all together forming a complete, perfect, and unimpeached record, proofs defying and demolishing their present unfounded pre

tensions.

Such is the device devised by the Hardin case-the sheer contrivance resorted to by this faithless register to obtain a decision from the department, which he could plead, as the man now pleads, as a recognition of this shameless, lawless monopoly of his own family and their favorites during his official incumbency. Such an attempt to apply to a vile purpose an honest decision, strictly correct in principle, dictated by law and good conscience, yet, erected upon a deceptive statement for sinister, deceptive, ulterior purposes, must shock the understanding of all impartial minds.

The memoralists now approach Congress asking that the evidences granted by Birch, when register, of their unlawful, ill-gotten claims shall be recognized, and the action of the executive gainsayed and annulled.

Their declaration that all the papers were not laid before the chief executive in the matter is emphatically and absolutely untrue, every paper having been submitted by this office for that purpose. In thus approaching Congress, with deliberate untruth on their lips, they shamelessly attempt in falsehood with circumstance, falsehood in word, letter, and spirit, in color and substance, to impute personal interest in the official action had in this matter.

The accompanying copy, affidavit "K," from Felix & McLaughlin, the applicants, then and still holding no relations to the employés of this office, and unknown to them, except as passing strangers transacting business, shows that neither the commissioner, the chief clerk, or the head of the military division of 1855, "nor any other person in any way connected with the General Land Office, had or have any possible interest in the lands located by the parties at Plattsburg, Missouri, for themselves and others, "either present, remote, or contingent, nor did they or either of them receive, nor have they received any fee or reward whatever or the promise thereof" &c., "so that any, and all such declarations imputing interest, direct or indirect, of the officers aforesaid, in and to the land locations alluded to, are entirely false and unfounded, and that the deponents are the only parties interested in the lands who were authorized to appear at the General Land Office in the business, and that it was upon their application that the action of the General Land Office was had."

Turning from this brand upon the forehead of the calumniators, we

trace the motive of the real instigator and prime mover of the wrong, which is to weaken the force of the blow which even-handed impartial justice has thus far dealt against his unlawful and corrupt acts. The whole proceeding, from beginning to end, is stained with fraud, and fixes ignominy upon the administration of the local land office by the late incumbent, and who, as a convict of public opinion, was expelled from a post in a community whose confidence he had abused and whose interest he had betrayed.

With an open breach of public trust before us; with nothing to palliate it, but all to condemn; without the mitigation of harmless or negative antecedents in the administration of the late register, or even the miserable apology of ignorance, but, on the contrary, with wrong staring us in the face, not by mistake, but by design, what alternative was to be pursued but strike the evil at its roots? In doing this, under the mandates of impartial justice, with conscience void of reproach or prejudice, we have our motives and purity of purpose impugned and libelled. Resting upon the law and unimpeached record, we ask the most searching inquest into the whole procedure, and appeal to the committee for that vindication which the circumstances may require.

It is deemed a duty to suggest that the ends of justice would be subserved and the cause of public morals promoted by a searching and thorough investigation, by commission or otherwise, into the whole administration of land affairs at Plattsburg during the last eighteen months, which, it is believed, would result in the recovery, with a view to lay open to free competition at sale, of the title to large bodies of the public lands, which have been suffered during that period to pass into the hands of the sons and kinsmen of the late register and land brokers, in violation of instructions and in disregard even of the common decencies observed in administering a public trust. With great respect, your obedient servant,

Hon. JACOB THOMPSON,

Secretary of the Interior.

THOMAS A. HENDRICKS,

Commissioner.

Α

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., February 5, 1857.

We, the undersigned, make application to locate the following described land warrants on the following described lands, situated in the Plattsburg district, viz:

In the names of Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix, of Reading, Berks county, Pennsylvania

No. 46705 for 160 acres, to wit: the northwest quarter of section. 21, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 41194 for 160 acres, 46253 for 120 acres, 33223 for 120 acres,

81074 for 120 acres, 63544 for 120 acres, to wit: section 9, township 63, range 34.

No. 28031 for 160 acres, to wit: the south west quarter of section 10, township 63, range 34.

No. 50257 for 160 acres, to wit: the northeast quarter of section 5, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 28011 for 160 acres, 70323 for 120 acres, 69841 for 120 acres, 70293 for 120 acres, 28431 for 120 acres, to wit: section 4, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 72246 for 120 acres, 75037 for 120 acres, 18542 for 80 acres, to wit: the northwest and southwest quarters of section 3, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 49639 for 160 acres, 83303 for 120 acres, 53943 for 120 acres, 23598 for 80 acres, to wit: northeast, southeast, and southwest quarters of section 33, township 64, range 34.

Nos. 40631 for 160 acres, 77846 for 120 acres, 68227 for 120 acres, 43208 for 80 acres, to wit: the northwest, southwest, and northeast quarters of section 34, township 64, range 34.

No. 50330 for 160 acres, to wit: the southwest quarter of section 27, township 64, range 34.

Nos. 84413 for 120 acres, 69367 for 120 acres, 31642 for 80 acres, to wit, the northeast and southwest quarters of section 36, township 63, range 34.

No. 20377 for 160 acres, to wit: the northeast quarter of section 27, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 72384 for 120 acres, 77644 for 120 acres, 70934 for 120 acres, 74221 for 120 acres, 36710 for 80 acres, to wit: the northwest, northeast, and southeast quarters and the eastern quarter of the southwest quarter of section 26, township 63, range 34

Nos. 52805 for 160 acres, 85243 for 120 acres, 58293 for 120 acres, 87675 for 120 acres, 36347 for 120 acres, to wit: section 25, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 60842 for 120 acres, 75061 for 120 acres, to wit: the southeast quarter, and the eastern half of the northeastern quarter of section 23, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 25022 for 160 acres, 76921 for 120 acres, 84553 for 120 acres, 74007 for 120 acres, 81559 for 120 acres, to wit; section 24, township 63, range 34.

No. 51406 for 160 acres, to wit: the eastern quarter of the northeastern quarter of the southeastern quarter of section 14, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 50637 for 160 acres, 56040 for 120 acres, 79029 for 120 acres, 69535 for 120 acres, 79002 for 120 acres, to wit: section 13, township 63, range 34.

Nos. 41319 for 120 acres, 63370 for 120 acres, 40435 for 80 acres, to wit: the northeast and southeast quarters of section 12, township 63, range 34.

No. 52241 for 160 acres, to wit: the northeast quarter of section 17, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 54120 for 120 acres, 55210 for 120 acres, to wit: the south

east quarter, and the eastern quarter of the northwest quarter of section 7, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 31732 for 160 acres, 69141 for 120 acres, 84365 for 120 acres, 60015 for 120 acres, 65206 for 120 acres, to wit: section 8, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 48450 for 160 acres, 9499 for 120 acres, 86790 for 120 acres, 73367 for 120 acres, 41064 for 120 acres, to wit: section 9, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 51646 for 160 acres, 83631 for 120 acres, 30876 for 120 acres, 80059 for 120 acres, 80341 for 120 acres, to wit: section 6, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 34772 for 160 acres, 66259 for 120 acres, 70656 for 120 acres, 81846 for 120 acres, 59825 for 120 acres, to wit: section 5, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 51111 for 160 acres, 76537 for 120 acres, 86543 for 120 acres, 84272 for 120 acres, 85995 for 120 acres, to wit: section 4, township 62, range 33.

Nos. 81419 for 120 acres, 75031 for 120 acres, 86330 for 120 acres, 69783 for 120 acres, 42467 for 80 acres, to wit: the northwest and the southwest quarters, the northeast, northwest, and southwest quarters of the northeast quarter, and northwest, southwest, and southeast quarters of the southeast quarter, section 31, township 63, range 33. Nos. 23722 for 160 acres, 71449 for 120 acres, 82062 for 120 acres, 65073 for 120 acres, 83369 for 120 acres, to wit: section 33, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 48353 for 160 acres, 4502 for 160 acres, 43233 for 160 acres, 45117 for 160 acres, to wit: section 30, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 35929 for 80 acres, 38391 for 80 acres, to wit: the western quarter of the northwestern quarter, and the western quarter of the southwestern quarter of section 29, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 49365 for 160 acres, 29703 for 160 acres, 34168 for 160 acres, 54160 for 160 acres, to wit: section 19, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 47041 for 160 acres, 85534 for 120 acres, 79242 for 120 acres, to wit: the north western quarter, the western quarter of the southwestern quarter, the eastern quarter of the northeastern quarter, and the eastern quarter of the southeastern quarter of section 20, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 49736 for 160 acres, 38528 for 160 acres, 44859 for 160 acres, to wit: the northwest, southwest, and southwest quarters of section 18, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 48146 for 160 acres, 46988 for 160 acres, 45415 for 160 acres, 50490 for 160 acres, to wit: section 7, township 63, range 33.

No. 35287 for 160 acres, to wit: the northwest quarter of section 8, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 36079 for 160 acres, 46857 for 160 acres, 33973 for 160 acres, 40961 for 160 acres, to wit: section 9, township 63, range 33.

Nos. 42656 for 160 acres, 36022 for 160 acres, to wit: the northeast and the northwest quarters of section 6, township 63, range 33. Nos. 35417 for 160 acres, 31174 for 80 acres, 41325 for 80 acres, 33757 for 80 acres, 35877 for 80 acres, 29385 for 80 acres, 36875 for 80 acres, to wit: section 5, township 63, range 33.