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IN error to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Maryland.
The facts of the case, as stated in the opinion of court, were:
'The original suit is an action of assumpsit brought by the defendant in error against the plaintiffs in error (the original defendants); the declaration containing the money counts, an insimul computassent and a special count, as for a deceit in the title upon a sale of certain slaves.
'Upon the trial under the general issue, the facts appeared as follows: Mrs Van Pradelles, a sister of the plaintiffs in error, being at New Orleans, in July 1813, made her will, describing herself to be of Baltimore county, in the state of Maryland, and thereby bequeathed all her estate, equally, among her children named in the will, and appointed the plaintiffs in error, executrixes of her will. She immediately after sailed from New Orleans, bound, as is supposed, for Baltimore; and has never since been heard of. In May 1815, the plaintiffs proved the will in the orphan's court of Baltimore county, and took administration of the estate. The property of Mrs Van Pradelles, at New Orleans, consisted of real and personal estate, and among other things, of some slaves; and in January 1816, the executrixes gave a power of attorney to John K. West of New Orleans, to receive and give receipts, &c. for all the goods, & c. belonging to the estate, to receive all sums of money, &c., and particularly 'to cause such proceedings to be instituted, as may be necessary to effect a sale of the whole real and personal estate of which C. D. Van Pradelles, the testatrix, was seised or possessed at the time of her death, and to execute, &c. a good and sufficient deed, &c. in the name of the executrixes, for the purpose of transferring all the right and title of the heirs of the testatrix therein or thereto, to the purchaser of the said estate; and generally to do, negotiate and perform all other acts, matters and things in the premises, that circumstances may require, as well judicially, as extra-judicially, for the effectual settlement of the estate, &c.' West, in January 1817, obtained from the court of probates of the parish of New Orleans, letters testamentary, authorising him to collect the goods and effects of the testatrix, and to make a just inventory thereof, and to do all other lawful acts as attorney in fact of the executrixes. In February 1817, West sold the slaves in question, belonging to the estate, to Hull, the defendant in error, for 1800 dollars, by a bill of sale, duly executed before a notary in New Orleans: 1350 dollars, part of the consideration money, was duly paid to West, who afterwards failed in 1819; but it did not appear in the evidence, that any part of the money had ever come to the hands of the executrixes: 450 dollars was, after the failure of West, received by Mrs Donaldson, one of the children and devisees of Mrs Van Pradelles. The sale was communicated to Mr Winchester, the attorney of the executrixes, and by him to the latter; and the correspondence between Winchester and West is found in the record. In 1826, a suit was brought in the parish court of New Orleans, by the heirs of the testatrix, against Hull, according to the laws of Louisiana, for the delivery and possession of the slaves so sold, and their offspring; upon which such proceedings were had, that a recovery was decreed to the plaintiffs in that suit, by the supreme court of the state, upon the ground, that the sale of the slaves was absolutely void, because, by the laws of Louisiana, executrixes can only sell after an order of court and by public auction, and not by private sale; and that here there was no order of court, no sale at auction, but a sale by private contract.'
The plaintiff, to support the issue on his part, offered in evidence the record of the proceedings in the parish court of the city of New Orleans, in the case in which the children and heirs of Mrs. Van Pradelles were petitioners, against James F. Hull, for the recovery of the slaves sold to him by John K. West, which proceedings were certified according to the provisions of the act of congress. This record contained a duly certified notarial copy of the act of sale of the slaves, dated 27th of August 1817, by John K. West, attorney in fact of the executrixes of Mrs Van Pradelles, to James F. Hull. The original, of which this was a copy, was the notarial register of the sale recorded by the notary, and in his possession according to the laws of Louisiana.