a railroad from El Paso, passing
through the midst of the silver district I have described, shall
transfer our commerce with Japan and China to the Pacific side of our
continent. Here the very silver necessary for the purchase of tea is
nearly as abundant as tin in some of the European mines, and, as in
California, the prospects held out to the farmer are equal to mineral
attractions.

It would be folly for our government to acquire Sonora without first
providing for connecting it with our country by railroad, and equally
foolish to acquire it without making provision, in the treaty of
acquisition, for reducing all land-titles to the size of a single
township, in consideration for the superior value given to the property
by the annexation, and for annulling all land-titles under which there
is not an actual occupancy. The Spanish courts concede to government
this power over private rights, and for this reason a treaty of
acquisition from Mexico would prevent the confusion that now exists in
California, and enable American settlers to locate understandingly at
once. All titles should continue to be subject, as they now are, to the
right of the miner to enter in search of precious metals, thus no
conflicts in relation to the rights of land-owners and miners could
arise. The principle on which the Mexican mining laws and the
California mining customs are established should be recognized by the
United States. But that right of entry would not arise until the
construction of a railroad should afford the means of actually reducing
the country to possession, which Spain never has accomplished, and
Mexico never can accomplish.

[79] When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher
introduced to me a son of the late emperor, who had a claim for
land in California which he had not located before the
annexation. I advised him, without a fee, that our courts did not
recognize foreign "floats," and that, by his own _laches_, he had
lost his claim, which he now spread along the Sacramento River
for 400 miles. Finding out, after an expenditure of several
thousand dollars, the defect, he got a new claim from the late
President Lombardini of thirty miles square, which he will
probably now pin tight in Sonora. The defect of our two last
treaties with Mexico was in not having a clause inserted reducing
all titles to land to six miles square, as a considerati