Centeno-Bernuy v. Perry

<p>Appeal from Gonzales. The case was tried before Hon. Fielding Jones, one of the district judges.</p> <p>This was an action of trespass to try title, and was originally instituted by E: W. Perry, in the District Court of Lavaca county. The property in controversy was a league and labor of land lying in the latter county. The petition was filed on the 15th of April, 1856, against C. Ballard and some ten other persons as defendants. The plaintiff’s title will be found sufficiently described in the case of Howard v. Perry, 7 Tex., 259, in which case the present plaintiff was the defendant. Howard and wife, the plaintiffs in that suit, were made defendants in this, and it was alleged in the petition that the other defendants claimed under them. The case in 7 Texas shows the character of the imperfect grant to Hibbins, under which the Howards claimed, and of which mention is made by the court in this case.</p> <p>The case, as there decided, turned upon the inchoate of imperfect character of the Hibbins grant, and it is one of the precedents which holds, that such grants were at most but equities against the conscience of the body politic, and not titles which were recognized by the constitution and laws of the republic of Texas, so as to give them judicial standing in the courts. (Paschal’s Dig., Note 150, p. 40.) It was then also decided, that the chief clerk of the general land office, in the absence of the commissioner, &c., may certify an archive or record in the general land office; and that, having certified, the presumption is that the contingency contemplated by the statute existed. (Id., Note 209, p. 72.) A point was also decided in reference to the equities of settlers and locators. (Id., Note 985, p. 722.) And it was also here first ruled, that the printed hook of recommended certificates, if published by authority, may he evidence for some purposes, hut does not furnish the proof upon which the surveyor is required to act; but that the act is directory, and