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[Brashear v. West and others.]

*624] not have taken the property out of the hands of the garnishee. Admitting them to state the law of Pennsylvania correctly, and we cannot doubt it, still the property was in the custody of the law, and would have remained safely in its custody, so far as we are informed by the testimony, had not the assignees consented to the removal of that protection.

We are of opinion that the plaintiff ought to have been allowed a credit for the amount of the ginseng sold by the garnishee with the consent of assignees of West, and shipped by Latimer, for himself and Redwood. But that he ought not to have been allowed a credit for the money paid by him as special bail for George Anderson. The decree is to be reversed and the cause remanded to the circuit court with directions to reform the said decree according to this opinion. The parties to bear their own costs in this court.

On consideration of this cause, this court is of opinion that there is error in the decree of the said circuit court, in allowing to the said Walter Brashear, credit for the money paid by him as special bail for Francis West at the suit of George Anderson; and also in refusing to allow the said Walter Brashear credit for the value of the ginseng shipped and sold by the said James Latimer, with the assent of the assignees of Francis West, after the same had been attached in his hands, by the said assignees. It is therefore decreed and ordered, that the decree pronounced in this cause by the court of the United States, for the seventh circuit, in the district of Kentucky, be reversed and annulled, and that the cause be remanded to that court, with instructions to perpetuate the injunction as to the sum which shall be equal to the amount of the ginseng shipped and sold by the said James Latimer, after the attachment sued out by Francis West for the use of Samuel Mifflin, James Lapseley, and Henry Nixon, assignees for the benefit of his creditors, was levied ; and to dismiss the bill as to the residue.

And it is further ordered, that the parties pay their own costs in this court.

The same decree was entered in the case of West and others v. Brashear.

464

*THE HEIRS OF P. F. DUBOURG DE ST. COLOMBE, APPELLANTS, V. THE UNITED STATES.

A complex and intricate account is an unfit subject for examination in a court, and ought always to be referred to a commissioner, to be examined by him and reported, in order to a final decree. To such report the parties may take any exceptions, and thus bring any question they may think proper before the court.

APPEAL from the district court of the United States for the eastern district of Louisiana.

The case was argued by Mr. Livingston, in a printed argument, for the appellants; and by Mr. Taney, attorney-general, for the United States.

Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the court. The United States had obtained judgment against P. F. Dubourg de St. Colombe, in his lifetime, for a large sum of money. This judgment was revived after his death; or in the law language of Louisiana, declared executory; and the property of which he died possessed, ordered to be seized and sold to satisfy the demand of the United States.

The heirs of P. F. Dubourg de St. Colombe filed their bill, praying an injunction to stay proceedings at law on this judgment.

The bill alleges that the estate of their parents was held in common at the death of their mother, and that the moiety belonging to their mother descended at her death on them, and was not liable for debts afterwards contracted by their father. It also alleges that they were infants, and that their father took possession of their estate, which he had wasted to an amount exceeding his effects in their hands. The law of Louisiana, they say, gave them a lien at the death of their mother on all the estate of their father, to the extent of this waste, exempt from the claim of any subsequent creditor. Several witnesses were examined, and several documents filed to prove the amount of the estate, at the death of their [*626 mother. The accounts are complex and intricate. The judge examined them, and being of opinion that the estate was insolvent at the death of the mother, dissolved the injunction and decreed costs. This has been understood to be a final decree, and to be equivalent to dismissing the bill. The plaintiffs appealed to this

court.

We are of opinion that a complex and intricate account is an unfit subject for examination in court, and ought always to be referred to a commissioner to be examined by him and reported, in order to a final decree. To such report the parties may take any exceptions; and thus bring any question they may think proper before the court.

[Dubourg de St. Colombe's Heirs v The United States.]

The decree therefore is reversed, and the cause remanded to the court of the United States for the eastern district of Louisiana, with directions to refer the account to a commissioner, with instructions to settle and report the amount of the estate at the death of the wife, in order to a final decree; and to state such matters specially as he may think necessary, or as either party may require.

466

•EX PARTE JUAN MADRAZZO.

Juan Madrazzo, a subject of the king of Spain, filed a libel praying admiralty process against the state of Georgia, alleging that the state was in possession of a certain sum of money, the proceeds of the sale of certain slaves which had been seized as illegally brought into the state of Georgia; and which seizure had been subsequently, under admiralty proceedings, adjudged to have been illegal, and the right of Madrazzo to the slaves, and the money arising from the sale thereof, established by the decision of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Georgia. The counsel for the petitioner claimed that the supreme court had jurisdiction of the case, alleging that the eleventh amendment of the constitution of the United States, which declares that the judicial power of the United States shall not extend to any suits in law or equity, did not take away the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, in suits in the admiralty against a state. Held, that this is not a case where property is in custody of a court of admiralty; or brought within its jurisdiction, and in the possession of any private person. It is a mere personal suit against a state to recover proceeds in its possession, and such a suit cannot be commenced in this court against a state.

MR. WHITE presented a libel, in the admiralty, against the state of Georgia, claiming relief, by the aid of this court, in favour of the libellant, a subject of his catholic majesty the king of Spain, domiciled in the city of Havana.

The right of the libellant to maintain this proceeding against the state of Georgia, Mr. White stated, depended on the construction the court would give to the eleventh amendment of the constitution of the United States, which declares that "the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or in equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state; or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state."

If the court should be of opinion, that, notwithstanding this amendment, jurisdiction could be entertained in a suit in the admiralty against a state, he asked that a citation in the nature of admiralty process, or such other proceedings in the case, as the court should deem proper, should be awarded against the state of Georgia, returnable to the next term of this court.

The libel stated that the libellant, Juan Madrazzo, was a subject of the king of Spain; that about the 2d of July, 1817, [*628 a vessel called the Isabelita, owned by him, with all the documents on board to show her ownership and character, cleared out from the city of Havana for the coast of Africa with a cargo of merchandise, his property, to trade there, exclusively on Spanish account, for a cargo of slaves, to be conveyed to the said city, there to be disposed of for his sole account, property and risk. On the coast of Africa the vessel took on board, purchased with the said merchandise, one hundred and twelve slaves, and on her return voyage towards Havana, about the 1st of October, 1817, she was captured by a piratical or insurgent cruiser, under the commission of one Aurey, or some other revolutionary flag of the revolted colonies of Spain not then recognized as

[Ex parte Madrazzo.]

an independent government, or in any manner authorized to act as a belligerent power, by the laws or consent of nations. The capturing vessel was called the Successor, commanded by one Moore, an American citizen, and was fitted out at Baltimore, and in the river Severn in the state of Maryland, for the purpose of carrying on hostilities against the property and subjects of the king of Spain, with whom the United States then were and still are at peace; wherefore the said capture of the vessel was illegal, piratical and felonious.

The Isabelita and her cargo were carried by the Successor into the port of Fernandina in the island of Amelia, at that time a colony of Spain, but usurped by the pretended patriots or revolutionists affecting the rights of sovereignty and a separate station as a revolted independent government, but in truth composed of a band of adventurers, chiefly American citizens, united principally by the hope of plunder, and not acknowledged as an independent government for any civil or national purpose. There the Isabelita and her cargo were condemned as lawful prize to the illegally commissioned piratical vessel, the Successor; by a tribunal pretending to exercise admiralty jurisdiction, under the usurped and assumed government of the place.

The vessel was afterwards restored to the libellant by a decree of the district court of the United States, for the district of South Carolina, exercising jurisdiction as a court of admiralty, upon a libel filed for restitution on behalf of the libellant. The proceedings in that case are invoked and referred to. The slaves, the cargo 629] of the Isabelita, were sold under the illegal decree pronounced at Fernandina, and by one William Bowen, the purchaser, were conveyed to the Creek nation, where, at a place called "the United States Agency," within the limits of the said nation, they were, to the number of ninety-five, seized and taken possession of by an officer of the United States, and brought within the limits and district of Georgia. These ninety-five slaves were subsequently delivered over to the government of the state of Georgia, on pretence that they had been illegally imported or introduced into the United States, contrary to an act of congress, and in compliance with an act of the assembly of the state of Georgia to carry the same into effect. A part of the slaves were sold by the government of Georgia or its officers or agents, without any form of trial or judgment, as directed by the said act of assembly; and the proceeds thereof, to the amount of forty thousand dollars, paid into the treasury of the state of Georgia.

The residue of the slaves, twenty-seven or thirty in number, remain in the possession of the state or its officers, or have been converted to or disposed of by the state, for its own use; or wrongfully delivered to some persons not entitled to the same, and contrary to the will of the libellant. The slaves, or the proceeds of those sold, could not rightfully become the property of the state of Georgia, by virtue of the piratical capture, seizure or condemnation, or by the

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