chase money, whether the land be bought at public or at private sale, is payable in four equal instalments, the first within forty days and the three others within two years, three years, and four years after the date of the purchase. No interest is charged if the payments be punctually made; but it must be paid from the date of the purchase, at the rate of six per cent. a year, on each instalment not paid on the day on which it is due. A discount at the rate of eight per cent. a year, is allowed for prompt payment; which, if the whole purchase money be paid at the time of purchasing the land, reduces its price to one dollar and sixty-four cents per acre. Tracts not com pletely paid for within five years after the date of purchase, are offered for sale at public sale, for a price not less than the arrears of principal and interest due thereon; if the land cannot be sold for that sum, it reverts to the United States, and the partial payments made therefor are forfeited: if it sells for more, the surplus is returned to the original purchaser.

4. All the lands to which the Indian title has been extinguished, are, for the convenience of purchasers, divided into districts, in each of which a land office is established. Ten of these districts are in full operation, viz; those of Steubenville, Canton, Zanesville, Marietta, Chillicothe, and Cincinnati in the state of Ohio, those of Vincennes and Jeffersonville in the Indiana territory, and those of Nashville (for Madison County in the great bend of the river Tennessee) and Washington (near Natchez) in the Mississippi territory. The sales have not yet commenced, the surveys not being yet completed, or the private claims not being yet decided upon, in the four districts of Detroit, in the Michigan, of Kaskaskia in the Illinois, of Mobile in the Mississippi, and of Opelousas in the Orleans territory. None have yet been authorised in the territory of Louisiana, and in the eastern part of the territory of Orleans. Each land office is under the direction of two officers, a "register who receives the applications and sells the land,

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and a receiver of public monies who receives the purchase money, unless the purchaser prefers paying it into the treasury. Those two officers operate as a check one on the other. Transcripts of the sales and of the payments, together with the original receipts and assignments are transmitted to the treasury: and no patent issues till after the calculations have been examined, and it has been ascertained that the party has paid the whole purchase money and interest. The system, as it relates to the accountability of the Receivers is better checked than that of any other branch of the public revenue; but the various and contingent provisions respecting the credits, interest, discount, forfeitures and other conditions of sale, render it rather complex, and for that reason liable to delays in the final settlement of the accounts of the receivers.

The total quantity of land sold under that system at the several land offices, from 1st July, 1800, to 1st July, 1810, and including pre-emption rights in Symmes' purchase and the Mississippi territory, amounts to 3,386,000 acres, which have produced 7,062,000 dollars. Of this sum, 4,888,000 dollars have been paid, in specie or evidences of public debt, into the treasury, or into the hands of the Receivers of public monies: the balance is due by the purchasers.

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All the laws respecting that branch of the subject are inserted under the head of "General Provisions;" where will also be found the acts to prevent intrusions on the public lands, which are equally forbidden under various penalties, whether the lands still continue in the sion of the Indians or have been purchased from them. Intrusions subsequent to the 3d March, 1807, work a forfeiture of title or claim, if the intruder had any such, not previously recognised and confirmed by the United States; and the President is authorised to remove such intruders, and to employ, if necessary, military force for that purpose.

AN APPENDIX has been added, which consists principally of various documents, connected with the title of the United States, or explanatory of certain ex tensive claims, either already rejected, or requiring a critical investigation. The most important claims of that nature which have come within the knowledge of the treasury will now be briefly stated.

This is a claim rivers, derived 1773 and 1775

1. Illinois and Wabash companies for several millions of acres on those solely from Indian purchases made in by unauthorised individuals. Exclusively of other considerations, such purchases were expressly forbidden by the proclamation of 1763 of the king of England. Yet it has been lately reported that the claimants intended to institute suits for the land.

2. Some large grants by colonel Wilkins, a former English commanding officer at Illinois. These were also forbidden by the proclamation of 1763, and are recognized by the grantor as null, unless confirmed by his government.

3. A great number of claims in the Illinois territory reported by the commissioners as fraudulent, and subject to the ultimate decision of Congress.

4. An unlocated township, included in Symmes' patent, and granted for the support of a seminary of learning, has never been applied to that purpose. Congress has given another township in lieu thereof, and directed that legal steps should be taken to recover the first.

5. The Yazoo claims, so called, embracing about 35 millions of acres in the Mississippi territory, and derived from a pretended sale by the Legislature of Georgia, but declared null, as fraudulent by a subsequent legislature. The evidence, as published by the state of Georgia and by Congress, is inserted in the appendix, and shows that that transaction, even if considered as a contract, is, as such, on acknowledged principles of law and equity, null ab initio—it being in proof that all the members of the Legislature who voted in favor of the sale, that is

to say, the agents who pretended to sell the property of their constituents, were, with the exception of a single person, interested in, and parties to the purchase. Much litigation must however be expected; and orders have lately been given for the removal of certain intruders, some of whom claimed the land under this supposed title.

6. British grants in the Mississippi territory derived from the Governor of West Florida. These have not been confirmed, unless the claimant had made an actual settlement; but the lands thus claimed have by law been for the present excepted from the sales.

7. Doublehead's reserve, so called, is a small tract on the river Tennessee, excepted by a treaty with the Cherokees from a cession of territory made by them. It remains Indian property, and is also claimed by the Chickasaws. The Cherokees, for whose use it was excepted from the general cession, seem to have supposed that they had thereby acquired the right of selling or leasing it to citizens of the United States, who now claim it, and whose removal as intruders on Indian lands, has been ordered by the President.

8. Bastrop's claim on the river Washita in the territory of Orleans. This is only a contract between the Spanish Governor of Louisiana and Baron Bastrop, by which a tract twelve leagues square was promised to him on condition of his settling thereon five hundred families, to each of which four hundred arpens of the land was to be allotted gratis. The execution of the contract was suspended by the Spanish government; and if it be still binding on the United States, it is only the residue of the land, after the families of settlers shall have been first provided for, which can possibly be claimed. Yet the whole tract is claimed as a fee simple estate held under a complete title.

9. Maison-rouge's claim, also on the river Washita, is of the same nature with the preceding. But the contract was approved by the king of Spain, and a certificate,

was, subsequent to the cession to the United States, obtained from the Spanish officers, stating that the conditions had been fulfilled by the claimant. There is no patent in either case; and the assent of the king, which, from its being obtained to the contract with Maisonrouge, seems to have been requisite in large grants, has not been produced for the contract with Bastrop. It may be generally observed that, the archives and documents relative to the domain of Louisiana not having been left, in conformity with the treaty, in the possession of the United States, the extent of the powers of the Governors or Intendants to grant land, beyond the usual concessions to settlers, is not understood, and the difficulty of deciding on the validity of many claims has been greatly encreased.

10. Houmas' claim on the island of New-Orleans. This is originally founded on a title to a tract about a league in length, on the left bank of the Mississippi on a depth of about half a league. The owner having no timber, asked and obtained from the Spanish Governor of Louisiana a back concession as far as the vacant lands extended. The obvious intention of the grant was, that it should preserve a breadth equal to that of the tract on the river. But the upper and lower lines of this, happening on account of a bend in the river, not to be parallel, but to diverge, making an angle of 120 degrees, the owners now claim all the land contained between those lines protracted on one hand to Manshak at the mouth of the Iberville, and on the other to the lower extremity of Lake Maurepas; which would include about 120,000 acres of the most valuable vacant land on the island.

11. A permission was granted by a Spanish Governor to the inhabitants of Opelousas, in the territory of Orleans, to cut wood wherever they pleased in the vacant cypress forest, reserving however the fee of the soil to the crown. This grant, from its nature, would seem to be revocable at will, and if continued unrestricted, will