The implication of the presence of squatters was well founded. When Peter Cartwright, in 1823, visited a settlement in the Sangamon country, he found it a community of squatters, on land which had been surveyed, but was not yet offered for sale. Money was hoarded up to enter land when Congress should order sales. Cartwright paid a squatter two hundred dollars for his improvement and his claim, bought some stock, and rented out the place, to which he was to remove from Kentucky the following year.(347) This squatting on surveyed land, and even on unsurveyed land, was a regular procedure. It added much to the difficulty of governing the state—hence the memorials to Congress, and hence the great significance to Illinois of an act of May 29, 1830, which gave to all settlers who had cultivated land in 1829 the right to preempt not more than one hundred and sixty acres.(348) This law was of general application. Even now the Illinois legislature sent another petition concerning preemption to Congress, because one of the provisions of the act of May, 1830, was that the plat of survey should have been filed in the land-office, and this provision debarred about one thousand Illinois squatters from the benefit of the act. A modification in their favor was desired.(349) The land claims of the ancient settlers, as they are called in government documents, continued to occupy the attention of Congress, in a desultory way, throughout the period, but their influence upon settlement had practically ceased with the opening of the public land-offices.(350) Among the obstacles to settlement was the holding of land by non-residents. Such lands were subject to a triple tax in case of delinquency, and when sold for taxes and costs frequently did not bring enough for that purpose, in which event they reverted to the state and the state paid the costs. Redemption, although possible, was rare.(351) In 1823, about nine thousand quarter-sections of land in the Military Tract, lying between the Illinois and the Mississippi, were advertised for sale, because of the non-payment of taxes by non-resident landholders.(352) At this time, two of the prominent men of the state who wished to dispose of a large amount of state paper, advertised that they would pay such delinquent taxes at twenty-five per cent discount.(353) In 1826, thirty-eight pages of the _Illinois Intelligencer_ were filled with a description, in double column, of lands owned by non-residents, the lands being for sale for taxes. In 1829, a similar list filled thirty-two pages.(354) Much discontent was manifested in the state on account of the laws concerning the public lands, and Governor Edwards’ message to the legislature, in 1830, elaborated a theory that all public lands belonged of right to the states in which they lay.(355)