t
Court for the Northern District of California. This court confirmed the
decision of the land commissioners. Extraordinary as it may appear, the
squatter interest then appealed both cases to the Supreme Court of the
United States at Washington, and still more extraordinary to relate,
that court, though it confirmed the eleven-league grant, decided that of
the Sobrante--twenty-two leagues--in favor of the squatters. The court
acknowledged that the grant was a "genuine and meritorious" one, and
then decided in favor of the squatter interest on purely technical
grounds."

"Sutter's ruin was complete, and its method may be thus stated: He had
been subjected to a very great outlay of money in the maintenance of his
title, the occupancy and the improvement of the grant of New Helvetia.
From a mass of interesting documents which I have been permitted to
examine, I obtained the following statement relative to the expenses
incurred on that grant:

Expenses in money, and services which formed the original
consideration of the grant $50,000
Surveys and taxes on the same 50,000
Cost of litigation extending through ten years, including
fees to eminent counsel, witness fees, traveling
expenses, etc. 125,000
Amount paid out to make good the covenants of deeds upon
the grant, over and above what was received from sales 100,000
========
$325,000

"In addition, General Sutter had given titles to much of the Sobrante
grant, under deeds of general warranty, which, after the decision of the
supreme court of the United States in favor of the squatter interest,
Sutter was obliged to make good, at an immense sacrifice, out of the New
Helvetia grant; so that the confirmation of his title to this grant
was comparatively of little advantage to him. Thus Sutter lost all his
landed estate."

"But amid the wreck and ruin that came upon him in cumulative degree,
from year to year, Sutter managed to save, for a period, what is known
as Hock farm, a very extensive and valuable estate on the Feather River.
This estate he proposed to secure as a resting-place in his old age, and
for the separate benefit of his wife and children, whom he had brought
from Switzerland in 1852, having been separated from the