This case comes to us from a state court and our jurisdiction is invoked on the ground of a law of the state charged to work an impairment of the obligation of a contract. The facts are that in 1834 the Mexican state of Tamaulipas granted to Pedro de la Garza a tract of land. The grant, signed by the governor, recited that the grantee had paid the appraised value, $204; that the grant contained '6 1/2 leagues of pasture land for large cattle, comprehended in the boundaries, angles, and demarcations which appear in the attached map, countersigned with the seal of this government, signed with a rubric by my secretary, which, for greater distinctness, are set out in the present title in the following mode: El Alcatraz and San Antonio of the waterfall, east to west on the north side; San Antonio and the Sacramento, north to south on the west; Sacramento and San Francisco, west to east on the south; San Francisco, San Pedro, and El Alcatraz, south to north on the east. The pasture land is bounded on the north by Los Olmos creek, and on the rest of the sides by vacant lands.'
Accompanying the grant was a plat showing an irregular hexagon and a survey made by Antonio Canales, as follows:
The inclination to the southeast of the Olmos creek figured in the survey of the irregular hexagon, which appears depicted, which contains 6 leagues of pasture land for large cattle and 20,782,500 square varas according to the units fixed by the law of the state for agrarian measures. The angular boundaries and most notable places which were defined were the following: A, boundary of the Alcatraz; B, boundary of San Antonio of the waterfall; C, boundary of Sacramento; D, boundary of San Francisco; r, lateral boundary of this pasture and angular of the Santa Rosa de Abajo, called San Pedro; e, lake of the sheep pen; m, n, ponds and heights of the waterfall; o, the little pond. The rectangle h, i, g, l was ceded to this pasture by citizen Pedro Villareal, of which it was defined in the terms which appear in the file of this survey, A. M. B., the Olmos creek. The survey was made with the greatest exactness, remeasuring the cord every half league and correcting the 10 leagues of declination to the northeast, which the compass needle has in these lands. This pasture is bounded on the north by the creek, on the east by the pasture of Paistle, and on the rest by vacant lands.
Carmargo, Dec. 5th, 1832.
Antonio Canales.
Thereafter Tamaulipas became a part of Texas, and that state, on February 10, 1852, passed an act confirming this among other grants. The act of confirmation, so far as is material, provided by § 1 'that the state of Texas hereby relinquishes all her right and interest in the following-described lands to the original grantees thereof, their heirs and legal assigns, to wit: County of Starr . . . (103) Pedro de la Garza, 6 1/2 leagues, called 'Santa Rosa' . . .' Section 2 of the act is as follows:
'Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of those claiming any of the lands named in this act to have the same surveyed by the district or county surveyor of the county in which the same may be situated, and, upon the return of the field notes thereof to the General Land Office, the Commissioner is hereby authorized and required to have the same plotted on the maps of his office, and issue patents for the same in accordance with existing laws; provided, that no patent shall issue for a less amount than the original grant. That the owners of said lands shall be required to pay the taxes due on the same, from the date of the organization of the respective counties herein mentioned; which taxes shall be paid and legal vouchers for the same exhibited to the Commissioner of the General Land Office before the patent to the same shall issue.'
In May, 1859, Felix A. Blucher, a deputy district surveyor of the district, made a survey, the field notes and a plat of which were in August, 1869, filed in the General Land Office. The field notes commenced with the statement:
'Field notes of a survey of 8 leagues and 12 labors of land made for Wm. G. Hale and F. J. Parker, the assigness of Pedro de la Garza, this being the quantity of land to which they are entitled by virtue of a grant from the state of Tamaulipas dated on the 3d day of July, A. D. 1834. Surveyed in accordance with an act of the legislature of the state of Texas, approved Feb'y 10th, 1852, and entitled 'An Act to Relinquish the Right of the State to Certain Lands Therein Named, This Being Part of Confirmation Numbered 103 for the County of Starr in Said Act."