In one instance I saved to a certain litigant property on El Paso street now worth fifty thousand dollars simply by producing an ancient deed which I had had in my possession for twenty-five years and had forgotten. The book, “Record of Deeds,” had been destroyed, but the acknowledgment of the vendor was on the deed itself, and the suit was withdrawn. I believe that in the main these cases were decided according to law, which was the best that could be done; but if, as we are told, there are certain eternal principles of right and justice, higher than those men make for their own convenience, then surely these principles were sometimes violated, for deserving men lost property which by such principles should have been theirs by such trivial neglect as failing to record a deed or to pay taxes or to preserve evidence of occupancy, or some other fact, or worse still, by false testimony. CONFISCATION—AN EXPLANATION—NOT AN APOLOGY. All Governments, including the Southern Confederacy, have written in their statute books that whoever engages in rebellion or takes up arms against their authority shall forfeit not only his property but his life. I am glad now that my Government did not enforce these harsh penalties against any of the Confederates. In 1864 the United States District Judge for New Mexico, himself a Southern man, held that his Court had the power to libel and confiscate the real estate of such citizens of El Paso County, Texas, as were then in arms against the United States. He based this claim upon an Act of Congress approved March 3d, 1863, which provided that “The jurisdiction of the United States Court for New Mexico is hereby extended over the citizens of El Paso County only in cases not instituted by indictment.” I, being Collector of Customs, had caused this act to be passed to enable me to condemn and sell goods smuggled into El Paso County (there being then no United States Courts in Texas). I am frank to say that I did not then even dream of the confiscation of any one’s real estate. The United States Attorney and Marshal for New Mexico came to El Paso and libeled the property of certain leading Confederates and proceeded against it in the United States Court at Mesilla, New Mexico, and certain of these lands and lots were declared forfeited and were sold at El Paso by the United States Marshal, and I purchased a portion of this property, as did others. I paid the Marshal eighteen hundred dollars good and lawful money therefor, and received and recorded his deeds. I protected the property of some of my Confederate neighbors, Dowell’s and Stephenson’s and others.