their nights of sleeplessness passed in anxious thought to ascertain
what was true and right amidst a mass of conflicting evidence and
doubtful principles, the public at large appeared to have little
thought and less consideration. The cry of disappointment over
frustrated schemes of cupidity and fraud was sufficient for the time
to drown all other expressions of judgment upon the action of the
court.

The unsettled condition of the land titles of the State
gave occasion to a great deal of litigation and was for a long time
the cause of much bad feeling towards the judges who essayed to
administer impartial justice. When California was acquired, the
population was small and widely scattered. To encourage colonization,
grants of land in large quantities, varying from one to eleven
leagues, had been made to settlers by the Mexican government. Only
small tracts were subjected to cultivation. The greater part of the
land was used for grazing cattle, which were kept in immense herds.
The grants were sometimes of tracts with defined boundaries, and
sometimes of places by name, but more frequently of specified
quantities within boundaries embracing a greater amount. By the
Mexican law, it was incumbent upon the magistrates of the vicinage to
put the grantees in possession of the land granted to them; and for
that purpose to measure off and segregate the quantity designated.
Owing to the sparseness of the population there was little danger
of dispute as to boundaries, and this segregation in the majority of
cases had been neglected before our acquisition of the country. From
the size of the grants and the want of definite boundaries, arose
nearly all the difficulties and complaints of the early settlers. Upon
the discovery of gold, immigrants from all parts of the world rushed
into the country, increasing the population in one or two years from a