Vallejo

held, in his instructions to the jury:

1st. That as to the first point assumed by the plaintiff: the grant not having had the approval of the departmental assembly, created only an inchoate or equitable title in the claimant, requiring political action to perfect it; that the legal title to the land, in virtue of the treaty with Mexico, passed to the United States; that the 8th and *284 9th articles of the treaty imposed a political obligation upon the United States, to protect- the Mexicans included in the acquired territory, in their property, but .without restriction as to the mode—in regard to which Congress had a discretionary power, and in the exercise thereof might have given to the decree of confirmation of the Land Commission, or the courts, the effect of passing the title from the'United States to the claimant,—such, however, is not .the act of Congress, passed in 1851, to ascertain and settle private land claims in the state of California'; its language is, in conferring power upon the land commission and courts, “to decide upon the validity of the claim ;” (See § 8,) leaving the character of the title as it was before; this character it retained, whether it was an…