Opinion of the court.-Merits. lieve that Vint told the truth when in his answer to the cross-bill of Findlay he stated that he received the notes "as he believed from one who had a right to their possession, and whose right to transfer them to him was unquestionable." As has been seen, Allen's deed could not have been delivered until after the 27th April, 1812. The presumption 18, therefore, that payment for the property had not been made previous to that time. Allen was not a man to be trusted, even by Vint, with so large a payment as the nominal consideration required without a delivery of the deed. The deed had been drawn with great care, as the scrivener testifies, because the transaction was important. If the contract had been fully consummated in good faith at its date, there can scarcely be a doubt that the deed would have been at once perfected and proved for record. This, as we think, disposes of the theory that the property had been paid for by Vint with his stock of goods in 1810. Vint did not set up any such claim in any of his auswers, and most assuredly he would have done so if it had been true. Besides that, no satisfactory testimony has been adduced in support of the claim. The only witnesses who testify upon the subject speak very indefinitely, and one of them makes some statements which are directly contradicted by well-established facts. In September, 1812, Vint himself stated, in an affidavit, "that on or about the 16th November, 1810, he purchased from Allen all his interest in the estate of William King, deceased, and after that, purchased from Allen all of the interest of Samuel King in said estate, for which he was to give and did give credit on a debt due from him to affiant for $10,000." There is nothing here about a payment in goods, and besides, according to the affidavit, the King purchase entered as much into the credit as did that of the Allen interest. But still more important is the absolute refusal of Vint to disclose the facts in his answers when directly called upon to do so. It is true that he need not make the statements unless he chose. The law under the form of pleadings in Opinion of the court.-Merits this case did not compel him to be more specific, but it can raise presumptions against him if he is not. He may, if he pleases, rest his case upon the acknowledgment of payment expressed in his deeds, but if he does he must take the chances of being overcome by other facts and circumstances which repel the presumption arising from such evidence. In this case the circumstances are emphatic. He slept upon his rights for a quarter of a century; he waited for every actor in the premises except himself to die; in all the litigation affecting his interests he never appeared so long as there was one alive who could speak against him from actual knowledge of the facts, and during all the time he permitted his adversaries to assume and represent his title. But we are not inclined to pursue this inquiry further. To our minds it is clear that in April, 1812, when the transactions upon which the rights of the parties depend, were completed, it was well understood by all that the original interest of Mrs. Allen in the estate of her brother had been in some form secured to her children. It is quite possible it may also have been understood that Vint was to have a lien upon it by way of security for the payment of some debt owing to him; but it is certain, as we think, that it was never intended he should hold it as owner. When, therefore, Vint came into court and asserted his absolute title as against the ignorant heirs of these deceased contracting parties, and wilfully concealed his contract for a reconveyance and the receipt which belonged to it, he came with unclean hands and must suffer the consequences. He does not excuse himself for this attempted fraud by pleading defect of memory, but claims boldly that he was not required to tell all he knew; that his duty was at an end when, selecting his own facts, he presented his own case. It is true he had the right to select that way of coming into court, but having deliberately made his selection he ought not to be surprised if he finds that he is received with suspicion. Honesty of purpose prompts frankness of statement. Concealment is indicative of fraud. If Allen and Vint were the only parties interested in this Syllabus. controversy the case would be different. They have been partners in fraud and neither can claim a preference over the other on account of honesty of purpose or fairness in dealing. But Allen's interest in the property was only that of a tenant for life. The real owner was his wife, and upon her death her children succeeded to her rights. It is the title of these children that Vint now attempts to defeat. By his own admissions in commencing his proceedings against them he concealed the truth. He thus in effect confesses that he relied to some extent for his success upon their igAfter years of groping in the dark, they were able to confront him with the facts and, as we think, to defeat the case he has attempted to make against them. norance. DECREE REVERSED, and the cause remanded with instructions to enter a decree DISMISSING THE BILL of the complainants and GRanting the PRAYER OF THE CROSS-BILL for a cancellation of the deed from Allen and wife to Vint. THE RIO GRANDE. 1. In a proceeding in rem, a valid seizure and actual control of the res by the marshal gives jurisdiction, and an improper removal of it from his custody, as by an order of court improvidently made, does not destroy the jurisdiction. Hence, where, on a libel in rem in the admiralty for repairs, a vessel had been seized, and, on hearing, the libel was dismissed, but on the same day an appeal to the Circuit Court was moved and allowed, a motion made on the next day by the claimants, and improvi. dently granted, to restore the vessel to them, does not divest the Circuit Court of its jurisdiction to hear the appeal, if within due time the appeal is perfected by giving bonds in the way prescribed by statute. 2. In such a case as that above described, a decree by the Circuit Court that the vessel was a foreign vessel-an issue whether it was so or not having been raised in the pleadings-if pleaded or put in evidence in the District and Circuit Courts of another circuit, to which the case finally gets on a new libel in rem by the original libellants against the vessel, which, on a subtraction of it from the first district and circuit, they have pursued into a new district and circuit, and seized anew, is conclusive of the foreign character of the vessel. Statement of the case. APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Louisiana; the case being thus: In October, 1866, one Williams, a steamboat captain, purchased in New Orleans, a steamboat called the Rio Grande, and took her to Mobile, Alabama. He there mortgaged her to Stewart and Ross; and employed her in running between certain towns at the upper and lower parts of Mobile Bay; he, Williams, and not the mortgagees having possession. While she was thus employed, Otis and others, in November, 1867, libelled her in the District Court for Alabama for repairs. The libels alleged that the steamer was owned by persons out of the State of Alabama, and belonged to some port in the republic of Mexico, and that the repairs had been made on the credit of the vessel. Williams as owner, and Ross and Stewart as mortgagees, intervened, denying that the repairs had been made on the credit of the vessel. They asserted, contrariwise, that the repairs had been made on the credit of Williams. They denied also that the vessel was a foreign vessel, or had been at any foreign port after her arrival at Mobile; asserting, contrariwise, that she was a domestic vessel engaged in running in the internal waters of the State of Alabama. In point of fact, the evidence tended to show that the vessel had been originally a vessel of war (then named the Susanna), built for the rebel confederacy; that she had been captured during the rebellion by a vessel of the government, sent into Philadelphia and there condemned, and sold as prize to one Hazard, an American citizen, on the 13th of January, 1865; that Hazard sent her to Matamoras in Mexico, under the command of one Tyler, and had given him power to make sale of her; that for commercial purposes she was put under British colors, with a temporary British registry, which expired while she was at Matamoras; that while there she could leave the port in no other way than by obtaining a temporary Mexican registry, which was done by putting her in the name of Francisco Alcala, a citizen of Mexico, residing in New Orleans, under which Tyler brought her to New Orleans; that all this was done for spe Statement of the case. cial purposes, but that the vessel all the while was in reality the property of an American citizen; that after Williams brought the vessel to Mobile he was not allowed to register her there as his own vessel, she being held under a Mexican registry; and, finally, that the collector gave her a temporary permit and license, on the 12th day of June, 1867, to run in Mobile Bay and River, and referred to Washington for settlement the question whether she should be enrolled. The court referred it to a master to determine whether there had been a credit to the vessel, and if so whether the vessel was a foreign one. The master recapitulated leading facts as he conceived them on both sides, bearing on the national character in law of the vessel, some of which are above given-adding that several of the witnesses swore that Captain Williams had told them repeatedly that the vessel was bound for their wages; that she was a foreign vessel, having Mexican owners; but that Williams himself swore that he never told the libellants that they had a lien, and never represented the vessel as being in point of fact owned by any one but himself; though he had spoken of her Mexican registry. The District Court for Alabama, on the whole case, was in favor of the claimants, that is to say, it considered that the debts set forth in the libels did not constitute a maritime lien so as to give the court jurisdiction, and dismissed the libel. This was on the 11th of May, 1868. At the time that this decree of dismissal was rendered, and within a few minutes thereafter, a motion was made to the judge holding the court, that an appeal from the decree be allowed. The motion was granted, and an order was then and there made fixing the amount of the bonds to be given on the appeal. On the next day-that is to say, on the 12th of Maythe vessel being still in the custody of the marshal, owing to the fact of some clerical irregularity about the motion for the appeal, the proctor of Stewart and Ross asked for and obtained from the court an order of retention of the vessel to them, and the marshal having surrendered her to |