Winter et al. v. United States.
which shall pe deposited in the office of the scrivener of the government and cabildo; another shall be delivered to the governor-general, and the third to the proprietor to be annexed to the titles of his grant." 2 Land Laws, App. 206.
The regulations of O'Reilly were not only expressly sanctioned by the king, on the 24th August, of the same year, but Don Louis de Unzaga, then the governor-general of Louisiana and his successors, were specially required to conform to them in all points, until they should be changed by his majesty. 2 Land Laws, App. 530.
From the 18th February, 1770, this regulation requiring a formal and particular survey of concessions, was the law of the whole province of Louisiana, and from the 24th August following, possessed the force of a royal cedula, which no representative or tribunal of the Spanish monarch was at liberty to modify or disregard. It does not appear that it was ever abrogated, or changed by the king, and indeed the uniform practice of the provincial government conforming to it, is the highest evidence of its having become firmly ingrafted upon the civil system of government which existed in the province of Louisiana. But this is not the only evidence.
Governor Gayoso, in his instructions, of the 9th September, 1797, declares that the forms established by his predecessors, in which to petition for lands, should be followed, and it is apparent that they carry out the general policy contained in those of O'Reilly. In a letter of Gayoso to Morales, the intendantgeneral, dated March 5, 1799, he says: "I also send you the form of the first decree which it has been the custom to issue before the survey was made. Of the registers which will soon be sent you, you will see the form in these used by all my predecessors."
The intendant-general of the province of Louisiana, Morales, in a letter to Don Pedro Varela Ulloa, the king's minister, dated October 16, 1797, respecting grants of land, says: "In order to obtain lands from the exchequer (fisco) the custom is still pursued which prevailed when the French were masters of the country, except in so far as the government and the intendancy acted in concert; and no other form is or has been observed
