than January 24, 1818; but the words of the treaty were there to speak for themselves. Whatever the negotiators imagined, the fact remained that the three grants were not included, since they had been made earlier than the date named.

Spain naturally was unwilling to subject herself to such treatment. She suffered the six months to expire within which, by the terms of the treaty, ratifications were to be exchanged. After August 22d, 1819, therefore, the treaty failed to exist; and the prospect was that it would be very difficult for the two Governments to come together again and heal this dissension.

Meade's action when the treaty had apparently failed.

In this aspect of affairs Mr. Meade, seeing no prospect of the United States paying his claim, renewed his efforts to have his accounts adjusted by the Spanish Government. The junta appointed to decide the amount of his claim made their report 30th September, 1819, forty days after the expiration of the six months within which the treaty was to be ratified. That is to say, the award was made after the treaty had failed. It appearing, then, that there was little prospect of the United States paying the award, and that the amount would remain a charge upon Spain herself to meet, we may reasonably infer that the amount of the award could not have extended beyond what was a fair and reasonable sum. Moreover, there is ground to believe that Spain would willingly have granted land in the Floridas to Mr. Meade in payment of his claim. In fact, Mr. Meade communicated with Secretary Adams in regard to such a method of extinguishing the debt due him. But as an American citizen he was content to share the fortunes of other Americans and to rely upon the good offices of his Government to see that his claim eventually should be paid.

Spain not altogether to blame for delay.

One can readily imagine how difficult it must have been for the Spanish Government to make headway against the pressure of those interested in sustaining these grants. In a sense, the dignity of Spain was being tested. Our Minister (Mr. Forsyth) speaks of "the influence these donations appear to have had in preventing the ratification of the convention of February 22, 1819" (iv Am. State Papers, 671). Writing to the Secretary of State from Madrid, October 10, 1819, he remarks:

"The present Secretary of State is sincerely disposed to preserve good terms with us. The influence of the grantees is still predominant, and will, I apprehend, continue until something stronger than words is used to bring our disputes to an end." (Ibid., 666.)

Mr. Adams had contended all along that de Onis, the Spanish Minister at Washington (the other negotiator), had been fully empowered, so that whatever he had agreed to ought to be ratified by his Government. On 17th August, 1819, when the Cabinet were considering a dispatch from the Secretary to Forsyth, Adams tells us, "there was little discussion upon the principles maintained in my dispatch, though Mr. Crawford and Mr. Wirt started objections to the stress of my argument upon the unqualified promise of the King of Spain, in Onis's full power to ratify whatever he should sign." (iv Memoirs, 412.)

The truth is, Spain could stand upon the letter of the treaty. There were other reasons why, in the state of politics in Spain at that juncture, the treaty should be unpopular, but the eighth article, embracing the annulment of grants, is prominent as the chief ostensible ground for delay. There can be no doubt that it had become very important to induce Spain to retreat from her position to the effect that under the terms of the treaty these royal grants were perfectly valid.

Payment of the Meade award set over against the annulment of the three grants.

Now, in view of Spain's being asked to annul these grants, is it not likely that she would have asked for some equivalent for thus appearing to the people to surrender their rights? A change of government made it possible to save the treaty. What happened? We know not better how to answer this question than to recite in full the fifth finding of fact by the Court of Claims, as reported in 7 Ct. Clms., 165-6, printing the italics precisely as there given :

"After the award rendered by the royal junta upon the several claims of the said Meade, as in the fourth finding set forth, to wit, in August, 1820, the Government of Spain resumed the consideration of the treaty of 22d February, 1819, and of the demand made by the United States that the three certain private grants of lands in the Floridas made by Spain to her own citizens, not included in the terms of the treaty, should be annulled, as set forth in the third finding. And the Cortes of Spain, in which body was vested the sole constitutional power to annul such private grants or cessions, refused to annul the same until the United States should agree to pay and discharge in full the indebtedness of Spain to the said Meade upon the award oj the royal junta. And thereupon the United States, by their Minister at the Court of Madrid, gave to Spain 'a clear and distinct assurance that the debt due to Richard W. Meade would certainly be paid to him by the United States if the treaty were ratified by the Spanish Government, and the cessions (to the Duke of Alagon and the Count Punon Rostro and Mr. Vargas) totally annulled.' And upon the faith of these assurances, the Spanish Government annulled such three private cessions and duly ratified the said treaty, whereby the Floridas, free of and unincumbered by these private grants, passed to the United States. And the said Richard W. Meade duly notified the Government of the United States of the assurances given by their Minister, and that the Spanish Government had acted upon the faith thereof when annulling the private

grants and ratifying the treaty; which notice was duly received by the President and by him transmitted to the Senate while that body was considering the acceptance or re-ratification of the treaty. And the United States, with full notice and knowledge of all the facts and circumstances set forth in this finding, did, on the 19th February, 1821, accept and assent to the treaty as ratified by Spain, and became seized and possessed of the Floridas thereby.

The conclusive effect of the findings of fact.

This succinct statement cannot be improved upon. It is in the nature of a special verdict rendered by a jury. The facts are settled for all time. Nevertheless (and the reader may well be surprised at the information), after this case had been taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, upon appeal by the claimant, the learned justice there who wrote the opinion affirming the judgment below proceeded to cast doubt upon the verity of this finding.

The Court of Claims, be it remembered, was rendering a judgment unfriendly to the heirs of Mr. Meade. It said technically that he had no remedy. The judges regretted to find against him, and the Supreme Court, taking the same view, said that the only remedy of the representative of Mr. Meade "is by an appeal to the equity of Congress."

Obiter remarks in opinion of Supreme Court.

If we turn to 7th Wallace (1869) at page 720 we shall find that Mr. Justice CLIFFORD, while discussing the claimant's insistence that because of this fifth finding he can recover in the Court of Claims, comments on the findings as "contradicted," "improbable" and "unsupported by any satisfactory evidence." Yet he says "it is not necessary to rest the decision in this case upon that ground," i. e., the ground that the findings are unsupported by satisfactory evidence (p. 722). It was an unusual course for a Justice of the Supreme Court to adopt in preparing the opinion of

the Court. Consequently, all that the learned Justice says is obiter.

But a more serious objection lies to this criticism from Mr. Justice CLIFFORD. An examination of the record upon the files of the Court shows that nothing was sent up for the Supreme Court to pass upon other than the petition and the findings of fact. Not a word of testimony appears, nor could it have been introduced into the record under the rule then existing for appeals. Mr. Justice CLIFFORD, therefore, had no data before him to which he could resort in order to ascertain whether the fifth finding was correct or not, a procedure, we may be permitted to observe, clearly in violation of the rights of the claimant.

No wonder the reporter of the Court of Claims, in printing Mr. Justice Clifford's opinion, saw fit to append the following note:

"As the opinion of the Supreme Court deals entirely with the evidence in the case, at most making deductions of fact, no principle of law can be deduced from it. The decision having caused much surprise, and being in conflict with the rules of the court regulating appeals and with the declaration of the court in other cases (see DeGroot's Case, ante, and Mrs. Mahen's Case, post), the findings of the Court of Claims are inserted in full" (7 Ct. Cl., 163).

Moreover, an examination of the language of the opinion shows that the writer is throwing suspicion upon a decision of questions of fact, and yet producing no grounds. for entertaining so unworthy an estimate of the action of the judge below.

"Without stopping to show that the findings are contradicted * * *" is hardly the language of an approved method of impeaching results deliberately reached by judges upon questions of fact. Besides, this is the only instance, we believe, where conclusions of fact embodied in findings by the Court of Claims have ever been questioned