This is a suit in equity, in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Georgia, originally brought as an action of ejectment, by the wife of William C. Riddle, four of their married daughters, an unmarried daughter, three sons, and two daughters of a deceased daughter, against J. Ben. Wilson, in the superior court of the county of Washington, in the state of Georgia, in August, 1881, to recover the possession of 1,500 acres of land, and the mesne profits thereof, alleged to be of the yearly value of $1,300, since the first of January, 1877. The original petition by which the suit was brought alleged that, in the year 1853, the said William C. Riddle, then being the owner of the 1,500 acres of land, conveyed the same, by deed of trust, to himself, as trustee for the petitioners, and that, although the defendant was in possession of the land, setting up a claim of title adverse to the title of the trustee and of the petitioners, Riddle, in violation of his trust, refused to bring suit for the recovery of the land, or to collect the rents and profits. In March, 1882, J. Ben. Wilson appeared and disclaimed all title to the land in dispute, and averred that he had never received any of the rents or profits thereof. At the same time, Benjamin J. Wilson, his father, appeared and asked to be made a party to the suit, claiming to be the owner of the land in dispute, and was, by an order of the court, made a party defendant. He being and alien, and the petitioners being citizens of Georgia, the suit was removed by him into the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Georgia, under the act of March 3, 1875. After the removal of the cause, the original petition or declaration was amended by adding, as parties plaintiff, William C. Riddle and the husbands of the four married daughters. The circuit court then, by an order, placed the case on the equity docket, and directed that the plaintiffs reform their pleading so as to present their cause of action in an equitable shape.