Opinion of the Court. with the Equity Rule 19, declaring that the plaintiff, at his discretion, may omit from the bill " what is commonly called the charging part of the bill, setting forth the matters or excuses which the defendant is supposed to intend to set up by way of defence to the bill." If it was competent for the Government, in this case, to have referred, in its bill, to the former suit, and, in advance, by appropriate allegations, to have met the objections which it supposed the defendant would urge to the former judgment as fixing the character of the maps of 1872, it was not bound to pursue that course nor to amend its bill and set out what was only evidence of its title to the particular lands in controversy. But there is another reason why the United States was not required to amend its bill. Before the amended answer of 1893 was filed, the Government, by its pleadings, had distinctly alleged that the maps of 1872 sufficiently designated the line of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, and identified the lands granted to it, while the defendant's pleadings with equal distinctness averred that they were not valid maps of definite location. Such was the condition of the record when this court decided the former case on the 12th day of December, 1892. That decision, as we are informed by the railroad company, instructed it "as to where the real strain of the controversy came," and having failed" to appreciate the inferences which the court might draw from facts or evidence," leave was obtained in the Circuit Court to file, and it did file. in this case, the amended answer of 1893, bringing, it is claimed, into view such new issues and such additional facts as deprived the Government of the right, unless it amended the bill and formally pleaded such judgment as an estoppel, to rely upon the judgment in the prior cases as conclusive of the matters determined by it. That which is claimed to be new in the amended answer was not such matter as even prior to Equity Rule 45 would have required a special replication or an amended bill in order to avoid its effect. The amended answer was, at most, only a more extended statement of the grounds of defence previously set forth. The manifest purpose of it was to relieve the strain of the prior Opinion of the Court. decision, and, under the guise of presenting new issues of a substantial character, to enable the railroad company, by introducing additional evidence on its behalf, to retry, in this collateral proceeding, the question as to the sufficiency of the maps of 1872. The pleadings in the prior cases distinctly averred an adequate designation of the line of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and the identification of the lands appertaining to that line. The averment in the amended answer of 1893, that the location by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company of its route in California "never was or became an actual or definite location," but was only "an attempted or pretended designation of a general route for a railroad from San Francisco to the Needles," and that such designation of its route was a colorable and fraudulent location or designation of an unauthorized and impracticable line," was not at all necessary, because the defendant company, under its original answer, if not estopped by the former judgment, could have introduced any evidence tending to show that there had been no valid definite location of the line of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, and that the maps of 1872 were filed and accepted only for the purpose of indicating a general route. So that if the Government was entitled, under the pleadings as they were when the defendant company filed its amended answer of 1893, to introduce in evidence the record and judgment in the former cases, its right in that respect was not lost by its failure to amend its bill and specially set up that record. That the record and judgment in the former cases were admissible in evidence, without being specially pleaded, we entertain no doubt. And when before the court as admissible evidence, the only inquiry was whether the sufficiency of the maps of 1872 was a matter in issue and determined between the parties to those cases. There are some cases holding that a judgment, without being specially pleaded, is not conclusive upon the issues to which it relates, but is only persuasive evidence, and that the court is at liberty to find according to the truth as shown by all the evidence before it. But according to the weight of authority and upon prin Opinion of the Court. ciple, the former judgment, if admissible in evidence at all, is conclusive of the matters put in issue and actually determined by it. Mr. Greenleaf correctly says that "the weight of authority, at least in the United States, is believed to be in favor of the position that where a former recovery is given in evidence, it is equally conclusive, in its effect, as if it were specially pleaded by the way of estoppel." 1 Greenleaf on Ev. § 531. This view is in accord with the decisions of this court above cited. See, also, Marsh v. Pier, 4 Rawle, 272, 288; Lawrence v. Hunt, 10 Wend. 80, 83; Betts v. Stair, 5 Connecticut, 550; Sawyer v. Woodbury, 7 Gray, 499, 502; Jennison v. West Springfield, 13 Gray, 544; Cannon v. Brame, 45 Alabama, 262; Trayhern v. Colburn, 66 Maryland, 277, 278; Garton v. Botts, 73 Missouri, 274, 278; Walker v. Chase, 53 Maine, 258, 260; Lynch v. Swanton, 53 Maine, 100, 102; Prather v. Owens, Cheves (Law), 236; Jones v. Weathersbee, 4 Strob. (Law) 50, 54, 55; Warwick v. Underwood, 3 Head, 238, 240; Isaacs v. Clark, 12 Verinont, 692, 694. In the present case the railroad company has made an elaborate argument in support of the proposition that the necessary legal effect of the forfeiture act of July 6, 1886 was to restore the title of all lands affected by that act to the United States, as of the date of the grant of July 27, 1866, and to "avoid" and "defeat," as of that date, the grant to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company with like effect as if it had never existed; that, upon such forfeiture, the United States became seized of its original estate in the lands as of July 27, 1866, with the same effect as if it had never made any grant to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company; and that it could only enter upon the lands for forfeiture as of its former estate in them. In this view, it is contended that the rights of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company attached immediately upon the forfeiture, and before the lands so forfeited were restored to the public domain. It is sufficient to say, in reference to this contention, that the question as to the effect of the act of forfeiture upon the rights of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company was fully considered and determined in the former cases. It was held that it was Opinion of the Court. not the intention of Congress that these lands should pass conditionally to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, or to give to it any lands previously granted to the other company, and that the first proviso of section three of the act of 1866 imports that "Congress was not only not intending to give to one company that which it had already given to another, but intended that lands previously granted should be definitely excepted from the later grant." The court said: "Again, there can be no question, under the authorities heretofore cited, that, if the act of forfeiture had not been passed by Congress, the Atlantic and Pacific could yet construct its road, and that, constructing it, its title to these lands would become perfect. No power but that of Congress could interfere with this right of the Atlantic and Pacific. No one but the grantor can raise the question of a breach of a condition subsequent. Congress, by the act of forfeiture of July 6, 1886, determined what should become of the lands forfeited. It enacted that they be restored to the public domain. The forfeiture was not for the benefit of the Southern Pacific; it was not to enlarge its grant as it stood prior to the act of forfeiture. It had given to the Southern Pacific all that it had agreed to in its original grant; and now, finding that the Atlantic and Pacific was guilty of a breach of a condition subsequent, it elected to enforce a forfeiture for that breach and a forfeiture for its own benefit." For the reasons stated, we are of opinion that it must be taken in this case to have been conclusively adjudicated in the former cases as between the United States and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1. That the maps filed by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company in 1872 were sufficient, as maps of definite location, to identify the lands granted to that company by the act of 1866. 2. That upon the acceptance of those maps by the Land Department, the rights of that company in the lands so granted, attached, by relation, as of the date of the act of 1866; and, 3. That in view of the conditions attached to the grant, Opinion of the Court. and of the reservations of power in Congress contained in the act of 1866, such lands became, upon the passage of the forfeiture act of 1886, the property of the United States, and by force of that act were restored to the public domain, without the Southern Pacific Railroad Company having acquired any interest therein that affected the power of the United States to forfeit and restore them to the public domain. These grounds being accepted as the basis of our decision, the law in the present case is clearly for the United States; for, as all the lands here in controversy are embraced by the maps of 1872, and, therefore, appertain to the line located by such maps, it must be, for the reasons stated in the former decision, that the United States is entitled, as between it and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, to the relief given by the decree below. Even if we were prepared upon a reëxamination of the former cases, or upon the showing made by the present record, to hold that the maps of 1872 were not valid maps of definite location, we could not for that reason, in this proceeding, go behind the former adjudication, and deny to the United States the benefit of the rule making that adjudication, so long as it was unmodified, conclusive, as between the parties to it, of all matters actually determined under the issues in the prior suits. One other matter deserves attention. The learned counsel for the railroad company in their extended comments upon the evidence in the present record, insist that, under the proof now before the court, it is indisputable that the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company did nothing more than file, in the Interior Department, "a map of general or preliminary route for the purpose of securing a preliminary withdrawal of lands"; that the maps of 1872 were neither filed nor accepted as maps of definite location; and that the proof is of such a peculiar character as to demand an examination of it by the court. In support of this contention reference was made to duly certified copies of certain letters, appearing in the records of the Interior Department: 1. A letter to Mr. Delano, Secre |