The invalidity of title, is however, a still stronger ground against Mr. Fish's right of adverse occupancy, which he now holds, and a case in principle precisely like this, has been decided by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. It occurred in 1798, before there was a reporter of the Supreme Court. Hon John Davis, United States District Judge, was counsel for the Indians, and Samuel Dexter, for the defendant. It was tried on a demurrer, before the Supreme Court in Barnstable, upon an action of ejectment, Proprietors of Marshpee, vs. Ebenezer Crocker. Judge Paine delivered the opinion of the Court in favor of the Indians. Judge Benjamin Whitman of Boston, was also, we believe, concerned in the cause. The substance of the case, as stated by Judge Davis and Judge Whitman, was thus: Ebenezer Crocker of Cotuet, had furnished an Indian woman, (known as the Indian Queen,) with supplies for many years. She occupied and claimed in severalty as her own, a valuable tract of about 200 acres of land on the Marshpee Plantation, called the neck, of which tract she gave a deed in fee, some time before her death, to said Crocker, in consideration of the support he had given her. The consideration at that time, was not very greatly disproportioned to the value of the land. After her death, she having left no heirs, the grantee, Mr. Crocker, who was an influential member of the General Court, petitioned that body and procured a full confirmation of the deed to him, in the same manner the General Court in 1809, confirmed the parsonage deed of 1783, except that there was not so long a time intervening between Mr. Crocker's receiving the deed from the Indian Queen in her life time, and its full confirmation by the General Court after her death. This took place previous to the law of 1788, putting the Indians under guardianship, when either the law of 1693 or the charter of 1763, was in force.[3] When the white Overseers came in, in 1798, they found Crocker in possession of this land, under the above title, and they employed Judge John Davis, as counsel, to vacate the deed and the act of the General Court. Judge Davis brought an action of ejectment against Crocker, (not in the name of the Overseers,) but in the name of the Proprietors of Marshpee, whose property he claimed, was as tenants in common, on the ground that the old Queen, though she occupied it in severalty during her life, could not, as one tenant in common, convey the interest of her co-tenants in common. It was tried in the Supreme Court, and the deed was set aside, for insufficiency of title. This insufficiency of title vitiated the conveyance on the ground that the old Queen had no power to convey when she made the deed, and that the General Court had no power to make good, by a resolve, a title originally invalid.