Opinion of the Court. And this reasoning at once suggests the necessary relation between the requirement of good faith and that of just title. In the Roman law the latter was substantially a mere resultant of the former. Marcadé Prescription, p. 194; Ducaurroy Inst., t. 1, p. 382 et seq. Where the want of just title is the result of a legal incapacity on the part of the seller, such a cause not only operates to render the title not just in legal intendment, but deprives the contract of the essential ingredients of legal good faith. "If then," says Marcadé (p. 201), "believing your vendor to be the owner when he was not, you knew he was a minor, an interdict, or otherwise incapable of selling, you could not then buy from him with the conviction that the contract was true and regular, and you could not therefore prescribe by ten years." But here the deed on its face purported to be a conveyance of the domain of the nation by a territory thereof. The want of power in the territory was the resultant of the constitution and laws of the nation, and was therefore an incapacity by operation of law, with knowledge of which the grantee was chargeable. Thus, not only did the just title not arise, but the essential element of legal good faith was wanting. And these twofold consequences, that is, want of legal good faith and the absence of just title which necessarily arise where a sale is made of the public domain, by one wholly without authority to make it, is clearly stated by Orozoco: "The title is lacking, because a void title cannot be alleged nor be made to serve to prove the just cause of possession. Quod nullum est nullum producit effectum. For, as Pothier says, 'in order that a possessor may acquire, by prescription, the thing he possesses, it is indispensable that the title from which the possession proceeds be a legitimate title.' If his title is void, a void title cannot be considered a title, and the possession that proceeds from the same is a possession without title, which cannot produce prescription. "The just cause is lacking, because this is nothing else than a proper title to transfer dominion, and a void title does not transfer it. Opinion of the Court. "Finally, good faith is lacking, because this is based not on an error of fact, which may be excusable in us, but we can never take advantage of error as against law. Nunquam in usucapionibis juris error possessori prodest. Juris ignorantiam in usucapione negatur prodesse: facti vero ignorantiam prodesse constat.” As the ordinary prescription could not apply, and as the necessary time for the extraordinary prescription under the Spanish law had not run at the time of the acquisition of the territory by the United States, and as, clearly, whatever may have been the rule as to the operation of prescription against the Spanish or Mexican governments, it did not run after the treaty against the United States, it follows that the claim of prescription is without foundation. We have discussed this question upon the hypothesis that the record showed such possession prior to the cession to the United States as would have authorized the running of prescription if there had been good faith and a just title, but because we have done this we must not be considered as so deciding or even so intimating. 4th. Nor is there merit in a contention made with respect to the portions of the land granted which were carved out of lands appurtenant to the towns of Socorro and Seviletta. It is asserted that, at least as to these lands, the power to grant existed in the territorial deputation. This claim proceeds on the hypothesis that a land law of the Spanish Cortes of January 4, 1813, (Reynolds, p. 83,) was in force in New Mexico in March, 1825. This law looked to the reduction to private ownership of "all public or crown lands, and those of the municipal domains and revenues, except the necessary commons of the town." One half of the public and crown lands of the monarchy, excepting town commons, were reserved, in article VI, for lucrative alienation; while provision was made in clauses IX et seq. for disposition of the remaining public and crown lands, or of the farming lands of the municipal domain, in small tracts, the grants to be made by the common councils of such towns, subject to the approval of the provincial deputation. While counsel contends that this law empowered the legis Opinion of the Court. lative bodies of the province, known as the provincial deputations, to dispose of the surplus lands of towns, that law does not expressly confer such authority. Article 4, which is relied upon, merely requires the deputations to make report to the Cortes as to the time and manner of carrying out the provisions of the law, to aid the Cortes in deciding what is best. Besides, this law of 1813 was held in United States v. Vallejo, 1 Black, 541, to be inoperative in Mexico after the enactment of the colonization law of 1824, and we are clearly of opinior. that, as applied to a Territory, if entitled to the construction claimed for it by counsel for plaintiff in error, it was obviously repugnant to and inconsistent with the supreme power over the Territories reserved to the national government, particularly with the sweeping powers over lands in the Territories vested by the law of 1824 in the supreme executive power of the republic. Moreover, if the town lands could have been granted under the supposed authority of the law of the Cortes of January 4, 1813, that law treated such lands as in the category of crown lands. The granting papers in evidence also warrant the inference that the lands were so regarded. Even then, though they were appurtenant to towns, they were subject to the disposition of the Spanish crown as part of the public domain, and authority to sel! was not within the scope of territorial authority. United States v. Sante Fé, 165 U. S. 675, 708; United States v. Sandoval, 167 U. S. 278; Rio Arriba Land and Cattle Co. v. United States, 167 U. S. 298. Lands of this character being a part of the public domain they were subject necessarily to the authority of the Mexican nation, and the territorial officers were as absolutely void of right to sell them as they were to sell any other part of the public lands of the nation. Of course the fact, if it be such, that the present claimant was a bona fide purchaser in good faith, who, in reliance upon the action of Congress with reference to similar grants, expended large sums of money on the faith of the validity of the title which he supposed he had acquired, cannot influence the action of this court. As said in Crespin v. United States, 168 U. S. 208, 218: Statement of the Case. "If there be any hardship to the petitioners in the rejection of this grant, they must apply for relief to another department of the Government. We are bound by the language of the act creating the Court of Private Land Claims." The decree of the court below is MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS dissented. Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA, not having heard the argument, took no part in the decision. THE CARIB PRINCE.1 CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. No. 45. Argued March 7, 8, 1898. - Decided May 28, 1898. Under the settled doctrine of this court, that the concurrent decisions of two courts upon a question of fact will be followed unless shown to be clearly erroneous, this court accepts as indisputable the finding that the Carib Prince was unseaworthy at the time of the commencement of the voyage in question in this case, by reason of the defect in the tank referred to in its opinion. The condition of unseaworthiness so found to exist was not within the exceptions contained in the bill of lading, and, under the other facts disclosed by the record, the ship owner was liable for the damages caused by the unseaworthy condition of his ship; and there is nothing in the act of February 19, 1893, c. 105, 27 Stat. 445, commonly known as the Harter act, which relieved him from that liability. The provision in that act exempting owners or charterers from loss resulting from " faults or errors in navigation or in the management of the vessel," and from certain other designated causes, in no way implies that because the owner is thus exempted when he has been duly diligent, the law has thereby also relieved him from the duty of furnishing a seaworthy vessel. THE Carib Prince, an iron and steel steamer, was built in England in the spring of 1893, for the carriage of passengers 1 The docket title of this case is "Josephine W. Wupperman v. The Steamship Carib Prince, her engines &c., Ernest Legge, Claimant." Statement of the Case. and freight. She was fitted with a peak tank, triangular in shape, extending from the bottom of the ship to the between decks, the tank being intended to hold water to be used as ballast in trimming the ship. The sides of the tank were the sides of the ship; the after end of it was the collision bulkheads. It was twenty-four feet deep, and had a capacity of eighty-three tons of water. The angle irons, beams, strengthening bars, etc., which enabled the collision bulkhead to sustain the strain of the water against it, were on the inside of the tank, the face of the bulkhead showing in the No. 1 hold being smooth, except that the plates were lap-jointed. The strengthening bars were fastened to the bulkhead by a series. of horizontal rivets, the heads of the rivets, inside No. 1 hold, being situated three or more feet above the floor of the hold. On September 14, 1892, the Carib Prince was chartered to the Trinidad Direct Line Steamship Company for the period of four years. On August 31, 1893, while the vessel was in the possession of the charterers, and lying in the port of Trinidad, loading for a voyage to New York, a number of cases of bitters were delivered on board, consigned to J. W. Wupperman. They were placed in the No. 1 hold. The bill of lading delivered to the consignor contained the following exceptions: The act of God, the Queen's enemies, pirates, robbers, restraints of princes, rulers and people, loss or damage from heat or fire on board, in hulk or craft or on shore, explosion, steam, accidents to or latent defects in hull, tackle, boilers and machinery, or their appurtenances, jettison, barratry, any act, neglect or default whatsoever, of pilots, masters or crew in the management or navigation of the ship, quarantine, collision, stranding and all and every other dangers and accidents of the seas, rivers or steam navigation, of whatever nature or kind, always excepted." The ship left Trinidad on August 31, 1893, stopped for a short time at Grenada, just north of the Island of Trinidad, and from the latter port proceeded direct to New York. After leaving Grenada, and on the night of the 3d of September, by direction of the captain, the peak ballast tank referred to, and which adjoined the compartment in which the cases of bitters |