I9I2.] OF THE UNITED STATES. 351 



lived, and have served to alter the judicial history of the United 

 States ? 



In Orr vs. Hodgson,-''' the efficacy of the treaties of 1783 and 

 1794, to protect British titles from forfeiture, came before the 

 Supreme Court. The case was one in equity to enforce a contract 

 for the sale of lands. The defense was lack of title. One Lucy 

 Paradise, the elder, by birth a Virginian, inherited the land by devise, 

 and in 1769, married in England John Paradise, a British subject. 

 They had one child, Lucy, the younger. She married in England, in 

 1787, a Venetian subject by whom she had two sons. She died in 

 Venice in 1800. In 1787 John Paradise and his wife Lucy, the 

 elder, came to Virginia, but returned in 1789, wlrere he died in 1796. 

 After his death Lucy, the elder, came to Virginia in 1805, and exer- 

 cised the right of ownership over the land in controversy till her 

 death, intestate, in 1814. She left surviving two nieces, parties to 

 the suit, and two grandsons in Venice. The defect in the title urged 

 of importance to us was that Lucy Paradise, the elder, by marrying 

 a British subject and remaining in England till long after the Revo- 

 lution because a British subject. Upon this point the Court held: 



" Admitting that Lucy Paradise did so become an alien, it is material to 

 inquire, what effect the treaty of peace of 1783 had upon her case; and upon 

 the best consideration that we can give to it, we are of opinion that the Sixth 

 Article of that treaty completely protected her estate from forfeiture, by 

 way of escheat for the defect of alienage.""" 



The Court then proceeds to examine the effect of the provisions of 

 the treaty of 1794, and concludes: 



" It follows, that in this view also, her title was completely confirmed, free 

 from the taint of alienage; and that by the express terms of the treaty, it 

 might lawfully pass to her heirs.""'* 



The Court concluded that, as a British treaty could not operate to 

 protect Venetian citizens, the title vested in the nieces. One will 

 note that the constitutional provision is here applied both to a 



='"4 Wheat., 453 (1819). 

 "" Ibid., p. 462. 

 "'Ibid., p. 464. 



