The judgment sought to be reviewed on the present writ of error was rendered by the supreme court of the state of Ohio in a proceeding begun by Flagg, the defendant in error, to quiet his title and possession to a certain tract of land lying in Nile township, Scioto county, Ohio, within the Virginia military district, embraced within survey No. 15,882. The judgment of the supreme court of Ohio in the case is reported as Coan v. Flagg, 38 Ohio St. 156. On the eighteenth of February, 1871, Congress passed an act to cede to the state of Ohio the unsurveyed and unsold land in the Virginia military district in said state, (16 St. at Large, 146,) which reads as follows: 'Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled, that the lands remaining unsurveyed and unsold in the Virginia military district in the state of Ohio be, and the same are hereby, ceded to the state of Ohio, upon the conditions following, to-wit: Any person who at the time of the passage of this act is a bona fide settler on any portion of said land may hold not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres, so by him occupied, by his pre-empting the same in such manner as the legislature of the state of Ohio may direct.' The lands thus ceded were granted by the state of Ohio to the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The college, claiming the lands in controversy to be embraced within this cession, for a valuable consideration sold and conveyed the same to Flagg, who entered into possession prior to the commencement of this suit. Coan, the original defendant, claims title under (1) exchange military warrant No. 494, issued by the state of Virginia on the sixteenth day of June, 1840, to the children and heirs of Francis Gordon, a child and heir of John Gordon, the only heir of Thomas Gordon, who was a lieutenant of cavalry in the continental line of Virginia troops in the Revolutionary war, for 500 acres of land, to be laid off in one or more surveys; (2) an entry No. 15,882, purporting to cover 500 acres of land under the foregoing warrant No. 494, made on December 18, 1849, by the said heirs of Francis Gordon and one David F. Heaton, an assignee of part of said warrant; (3) a survey under said entry No. 15,882, purporting to contain 400 acres, 375 acres for the heirs of Francis Gordon, and 25 acres for said Heaton, made by said D. F. Heaton, a deputy-surveyor of the district, on April 10, 1851, giving the metes and bounds of the land surveyed, which was duly recorded on December 23, 1851, in the district land-office at Chillicothe; (4) and mesne conveyances from the heirs of said Francis Gordon and said Heaton to Coan.