the period of the first sales of public lands in the territory. It seems
strange that such sales should have been so long delayed, yet the
settlement of French claims, although begun by the Governor of the
Northwest Territory at an early day, and continued by commissioners
authorized by Congress and appointed in 1804, was incomplete when Illinois
became a separate territory, and the United States government adhered to
its policy of selling no land in the territory until the claims were
finally adjudicated. When a list of decisions reported by the
commissioners to Congress late in 1809 was confirmed in the following
May,(225) and the next year a long list of rejected claims arising chiefly
from the work of professional falsifiers, was reported,(226) it seemed
probable that the work was nearing completion, but a final settlement was
still delayed, and the long-suffering Illinois squatters were bitterly
disappointed when, in February, 1812, in accordance with a resolution
presented by the Committee on Public Lands, Congress made provision for
the appointment of a committee to revise the confirmations made by the
Governor years before.(227) The first legislature of Illinois met in the
succeeding November, and adopted a memorial to Congress in which it was
pointed out that the establishment of a land-office in the territory,
several years before, had led to the opinion that the public land would
soon be sold, and that because of this opinion those who constituted the
majority of the inhabitants of the territory had been induced to settle,
hoping that they would have an opportunity to purchase land before they
should have made such improvements as would tempt the competition of
avaricious speculators. The fulfillment of this hope having been long
deferred, many squatters had now made valuable improvements which they
were in danger of losing, either at the public sales of land or through
the designs of the few speculators who had bought from the needy and
unbusinesslike French most of the unlocated claims. For the relief of the
squatters a law was desired that would permit actual settlers to enter the
land on which their improvements stood, and requiring persons holding
unlocated claims to locate them on unimproved lands lying in the region
designated by Congress for that purpose. It was also hoped that as
Congress had given one hundred acres of land to each regular soldier, as
much would be granted to each member of the Illinoi