774 



PROVISIONAL COURT FOR LOUISIANA. 



sale of the property. He directed the sheriff to 

 receive in payment of his mortgage only gold 

 and silver. Guillontet wished to pay it in 

 Confederate notes. These, Emerson refused 

 to receive. Shortly afterward Emerson was 

 arrested by .order of a Confederate provost 

 marshal and carried before him and questioned 

 as to his refusal to receive Confederate notes 

 in payment. He said that he had refused, and 

 further said that as to debts like the mortgage, 

 arising out of contracts made prior to the Con- 

 federate rule, when the currency was specie or 

 its equivalent, and in which he had paid or 

 loaned specie, he should insist on payment in 

 specie and should decline to receive Confeder- 

 ate notes. The provost marshal ordered him 

 to be committed to the Parish Prison, telling 

 him that he would discharge him whenever he 

 would consent to receive Confederate notes in 

 payment of all sums due him. Being an old 

 man and infirm, he could not remain there 

 without great danger to his life, and he soon 

 yielded to the entreaties of his wife and friends, 

 and gave a written promise to the provost 

 marshal that he would receive those notes in 

 payment of all sums due him, and was dis- 

 charged. Shortly afterward,the mortgage was 

 paid off by Guillontet in Confederate notes, and 

 was cancelled of. record. Soon after the Pro- 

 visional Court was opened, Emerson brought 

 a suit to have the cancellation of the mort- 

 gage rescinded, and the mortgage restored 

 to its condition as a lien on the premises, 

 and offered to return the Confederate notes 

 to Guillontet. Since the cancellation of the 

 mortgage Guillontet had procured from an- 

 other person named Samory, having no knowl- 

 edge of the manner in which the cancellation 

 of Emerson's mortgage had been effected, an- 

 other loan, and had given another mortgage on 

 the same property. The holder of this mort- 

 gage was also made defendant in Emerson's 

 suit, and the lien of his mortgage was 

 sought to be cut off or postponed to that of 

 Emerson. The court ordered the cancellation 

 to be vacated, and Emerson's mortgage to be 

 restored as a lien on the property, but declined 

 to vacate or postpone the lien of the subse- 

 quent mortgage, and excepted that from the 

 operation <jf Emerson's lien, and established it 

 as prior to that of Emerson's mortgage. 



Crowell & Hallet were ship chandlers in 

 New Orleans in the early days of the rebellion. 

 An order was made by the President of the 

 Confederacy, that all Northern people should, 

 within a certain time, leave the Confeder- 

 acy. They, being northern men, felt it neces- 

 sary to leave, and prior to leaving attempt- 

 ed to dispose of their goods and credits, and all 

 property belonging to the firm by sale. After 

 some attempts to sell, which were unsuccessful, 

 they finally made a bargain with the defend- 

 ant, Mr. Field, by which he agreed to buy the 

 fixtures, lease of store, bills receivable and 

 stock, for twelve hundred dollars. No inven- 

 tory or account of the goods, or fixtures, or 



debts due the firm, or of the other assets was 

 made, and no price was fixed or named for any 

 part of the property sold. The price of twelve 

 hundred dollars was paid in cash at the time 

 of the sale. The evidence further showed that 

 the property sold was worth three or four times 

 the price paid; that Crowell, who made the 

 sale, and was the only member of the firm at 

 that time in New Orleans, continued afterward 

 to stop at the store and give some attention to 

 the business as long as he remained in the city ; 

 that the business afierward went on much as 

 it had done before the sale, under the care of 

 the same clerk who had previously been in the 

 employment of Crowell & Hallet, and who con- 

 tinued to conduct it under the employment of 

 the purchaser. That the vendors and the pur- 

 chaser had been old friends, and after the sale 

 the purchaser in answer to inquiries by letters 

 how the business was progressing, gave the 

 sellers such general information as he had from 

 time to time. It further appeared that the 

 money paid by Field on the purchase, found 

 its way that evening or the next back to the 

 hands of his wife. Crowell & Hallet brought 

 suit in the Provisional Court to recover the 

 money realized by Field for the property trans- 

 ferred to him, alleging that the apparent sale 

 was a mere pretence, and that the transaction 

 was a feigned sale to enable the sellers to avoid 

 seizure and confiscation by the so-called Con- 

 federate Government, and that it was the un- 

 derstanding of the parties at the time that 

 Field should receive the goods and sell them 

 for their account, and account to them for the 

 proceeds. The court decided that the sale by 

 Crowell & Hallet was simulated and not real ; 

 that the motive for it was to enable the plain- 

 tiffs to avoid the confiscation of their property 

 by the so-called Confederate Government; that 

 such a transaction was not contrary to law, or 

 public policy, or good morals ; that the resort 

 to stratagem, in order to keep the goods from 

 spoliation by a body having no other right 

 than that which comes from the possession of 

 physical force, was not prohibited by law or 

 good morals; and that the pnrty to it was not 

 prohibited from impeaching such a transaction, 

 and showing its falsity, and setting up and en- 

 forcing the real contract. 



Ribas, a gentleman of large means located in 

 New Orleans, for many years had resided in 

 Paris. Avandano Brothers, a firm of New Or- 

 leans, had been his agents and collected his 

 rents and income. During the days of the 

 Confederate rule in New Orleans, some of the 

 time there was no other currency than the 

 Confederate notes, and no other could be ob- 

 tained by Avandano Brothers in payment of 

 the rents of Ribas's houses. Having a discretion 

 to receive payments in such sums and in such 

 currency as they thought best, they accepted it 

 in Confederate notes. At that time, and for 

 some time afterward, the port was blockaded, 

 and communication with Paris was suspended, 

 and no notice was given to Ribas that they.had 



