The action of Congress ordering a survey of the reserve expedited these irregular preëmptions. The expectations of the squatters were so far met that on August 26, 1852, Congress authorized the “reduction” of the reserve, and the survey and sale of the excluded area. Two years passed before the surveys were completed and the lands advertised for sale. It was not desired that haste be made. On the completion of the surveyor’s work, the squatters formed a so-called “Equal Rights and Impartial Protection Claim Association of Hennepin County, M. T.,” the prime object of which was to adjust the numerous tracts of claimants to the lines of survey. This was effected by the action of an executive committee allowed to use discretion and guaranteed support. There was a second use for this organization. There was a considerable area east of the Mississippi left outside the boundary of the reduced reserve. This had been offered for sale in the usual subdivisions in September, 1854, at public auction. There was but one bidder, and he was surrounded by interested citizens who would have made it uncomfortable for any other person who might thoughtlessly inject a superfluous bid and mar the harmony of the occasion. The government got $1.25, the minimum price for wild lands, for property worth easily ten times that sum, and nobody’s conscience was strained. In anticipation of a public sale of the main portion of the reserved lands on which Minneapolis has been built, the claim association mentioned was prepared, by similar proceedings, to prevent any speculators (others than themselves) from depriving them of their rights by offering to pay value for the lands. But the plats were by some unknown influence held back in Washington and the sale was postponed. When Congress assembled in December, 1854, a strong delegation of claimants appeared in Washington and secured further postponement of the public sale. Delegate Rice took up their cause with vigor and presently obtained the passage of an act granting preëmption right to all who might comply with preëmption conditions. In the spring of 1855 the fortunate claimants proved up, and the government received $24,688.37 for 19,733.87 acres of land worth more than $200,000. There is a tradition, lacking support by particular facts, that military officers in the neighborhood profited by arrangements with squatters, who agreed to divide spoils in consideration of being left undisturbed on their claims. Citizens not having such arrangements were discouraged, and in some cases driven off by force.