company there, and would, in all probability, kick up a disturbance with the Indians, if in no other way their object could be effected. I have the honor to be your obedient servant, Major JAMES A. HARDIE, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. Commanding West Military District, San Francisco, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, May 26, 1848. SIR: I am in the receipt of your communication of the 22d instant, which informs me that the case of the mill-stones was regularly tried and decided by proof in your juzgado. That being the case, it is certainly not my intention to disturb that decision. My communication of the 16th was written under the impression, as therein expressed, that you had taken them from the priest at the instance of Vicente Feliz, by which I meant to convey the idea that they had been taken upon the representation of Feliz, without due course of trial; and it was under that view of the case that I desired them to be returned. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. JOHN M. PRICE, Alcalde of San Luis Obispo, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, May 31, 1848. SIR: Your communication of the 16th instant is before me. The subject which you present, of the want of a proper jail, and the funds to erect one, has been anticipated, and will be fully met in some laws which a few days since were sent to San Francisco to be printed. I think it will be very proper in you to rent out the municipal lands you speak of, and appropriate the funds to municipal purposes. There are a large pile of mission records here; but whether those of which you speak are among them, I know not. Mr. Hartnell is now absent at San Francisco; when he returns, I will direct him to examine them and inform you accordingly. I propose to have constructed a good and secure prison at the Angeles, Santa Barbara, (at this place there is one,) Pueblo de San José, Sonoma, and at Sutter's Fort, and will appropriate $1,000 towards the construction of each one, (the plan of the building to be submitted to me for approval,) the balance of the cost to be raised by the citizens. These prisons should be planned with a view of quartering the keeper, proper ventilation, and the security of the prison apartments, and the sepa ration of prisoners according to crime, solitary confinement, &c I should be glad to receive a well-drawn plan and specifiation, with estimates of cost, &c. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. STEPHEN C. FOSTER, Alcalde, Los Angeles, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, SIR: I received last night your letter of the 29th instant, with its enclosure, on the subject of the administration of the estate of the late W. A. Leidsdorff, who, it appears, was not a citizen of the United States, but a naturalized citizen of the republic of Mexico; and, therefore, it only remains for the courts of the country to proceed in the matter according to the laws and customs of the country. You, as the alcalde, and at this time the highest judicial officer in the district where Mr. Leidsdorff died, should take the necessary steps to put the estate in the hands of competent and safe men, who should be required to give bond and good security in at least double its estimated value, conditioned for the proper management, accountability, and settlement of the same, according to such laws as are now, or may be created touching such matters. Inventories and appraisements of every species and article of property of the deceased should immediately be made, under oath, by two competent and respectable persons appointed by your court, and deposited in your office. There are now in progress of printing some laws touching the settlement of estates, &c.; and therefore the bond spoken of above should be ex-pressly conditioned that the accountability, settlement, &c., should be in accordance with such laws as are now, or may be hereafter, applicable to such accountability and settlement. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, JOHN TOWNSEND, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding.. 1st Alcalde, San Francisco, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, SIR: I received last night your letter of the 26th instant. The copy of the tariff regulations corrected in red ink was made from one sent me by the commodore. The discrepancies which you point out, I presume, were. oversights, as you say, in making the alterations. I send you herewith a little book with the tariff of duties alphabetically arranged, compiled by one of the custom-house clerks in New York. You will find it more convenient than the printed tariff you have. I have corrected it in pencil, or at least believe I have, in accordance with the Secretary of the Treasury's letter to the President of the 5th of November. If I have not in the corrections fully complied with that letter, you must supply the omissions yourself. Your views in relation to the seagoing vessels trading in the bay, &c., are approved. I have the honor to remain your obedient servant, Captain J. L. FOLSOM, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. Assistant Quartermaster, San Francisco, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 2, 1848. CAPTAIN: You have now been in command of the post of San Diego for three months, and yet I have received no returns from the custom-house at that port, though you acknowledge in your letter of the 30th of April that you had "the printed forms and regulations," which give all the data upon which to make the returns required. The business in this office is retarded and kept back for months and months in consequence of the want of promptness and correctness of some of the officers in rendering and making their returns. I send you herewith a little book with the tariff of duties alphabetically arranged, compiled by one of the custom-houses clerks in New York. You will find it, in determining the amount of duties to be paid, more convenient than the printed one you have. I have corrected it in pencil, or at least believe I have, in accordance with the Secretary of the Treasury's letter to the President of the 5th of November. If I have not in the corrections fully complied with that letter, you must supply the omissions yourself. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, Captain Wм. E. SHANNON, R. B. MASON, Commanding, San Diego, California. P. S. Send up at once the returns due for the quarter ending 31st of March, showing the amount received from the Mormon officer, &c., and also the monthly statements of revenue received during each month since you have commanded at San Diego. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 2, 1848. CAPTAIN: I herewith send you a little book with the tariff alphabetically arranged, compiled by one of the custom-house clerks in New York. You will find it, in determining the amount of duties to be paid, more convenient than the printed tariff you have. I have corrected it in pencil, or at least believe I have, in accordance with the Secretary of the Treasury's letter to the President of the 5th of November. If I have not in the corrections fully complied with that letter, you must supply the omissions yourself. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. Captain F. J. LIPPETT, Santa Barbara, California; and DAVID W. ALEXANDER, San Pedro, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 5, 1848. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 28th ultimo and its enclosures, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, relating to the complaint made to you by Mr. Cambuston on account of my proclamation of the 12th of February taking effect at the Pueblo de San José from the day of its date, when the said proclamation was not received at the pueblo until several days thereafter. A statute, when duly made, takes effect from its date, when no time is fixed, and this is now the settled rule. It was so declared by the Supreme Court of the United States in Mathews vs. Zane, and it was likewise so adjudged in the circuit court in Massachusetts in the case of the "brig Ann."-(See Kent's Commentaries, vol. 1, page 454, an eminent legal writer.) I again quote from the same author: "There is a good deal of hardship in the rule as it now stands, both here and in England, for a statute is to operate from the very day it passes, if the law does not establish the time. "It is impossible in any State, and particularly in such a wide-spread dominion as that of the United States, to have notice of the existence of the law until some time after it has passed. "It would be no more than reasonable and just that the statute should not be deemed to operate upon the persons and property of individuals, or impose pains and penalties for acts done in contravention of it, until the law was duly promulgated. The rule, however, is deemed to be fixed beyond the power of judicial control; and no time is allowed for the publication of the law before it operates, when the statute itself gives no time. "Thus, in the case of the brig Ann, the vessel was libelled and condemned for sailing from Newburyport, in Massachusetts, on the 12th of January, 1808, contrary to the act of Congress of the 9th of January, 1808, though it was admitted the act was not known in Newburyport on the day the brig sailed." That part of my proclamation of the 12th of February complained of, is in these words: "From and after this date, the Mexican laws and customs now prevailing in California, relating to the denouncement' of mines, are hereby abolished." Now, this proclamation deprives no one of his property; it does not "operate upon the persons and property of individuals, or impose pains or penalties for acts done in contravention of it." It merely prevents persons from possessing themselves of that which at its date did not belong to them. I therefore decline making any alterations touching the operation of this proclamation in California. Be pleased, Mr. consul, to accept the assurance of my most respectful consideration. R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, Governor of California To J. S. MOERENHOUT, 36 HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 8, 1848. SIR: In my communication of the 8th of May, I returned to you the informal receipts of Pedro C. Carrillo, and called your attention to the proper manner of making his accounts. The mail arrived to-day from the south, but did not bring up the account of Carrillo properly made out, nor any letter from you accounting for the delay. I beg that you will be more prompt in future, and not again suffer a mail to pass by when there is a communication, document, voucher, &c., to be forwarded to these headquarters, without sending it up. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, Lieut. H. S. CARNES, R. B. MASON, Colonel Ist Dragoons, commanding. New York Volunteers, Santa Barbara, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 9, 1848. SIR: Mr. Foster has written to me in relation to some contingent expenses of the court recently held at Los Angeles, for the trial of Canfield, Myers, Burrows, and others-such as pay for the services of an interpreter and stationery. These are proper charges, and you are authorized to pay them. Fees for witnesses summoned on the part of the defendants are not to be paid by you unless in the case of an acquittal.. The convicted party always pays his own witnesses. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, Lieutenant J. W. DAVIDSON, R. B. MASON, Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding. First Dragoons, A. A. Quartermaster, Los Angeles, California. HEADQUARTERS TENTH MILITARY DEPARTMENT, Monterey, California, June 11, 1848. SIR: I have received your letter of the 30th of May and its enclosures. I shall leave here to-morrow for the north, to be absent some three or four weeks; consequently, will not be here when the record of Barnes's trial arrives. I will, however, attend to it immediately on my return. I have written to Lieutenant Davidson on the subject of the contingent expenses of the court. am, respectfully, your obedient servant, S. C. FOSTER, R. B. MASON, Alcalde, Los Angeles, California. |