PROVISIONAL COURT FOR LOUISIANA. 



775 



collected these rents, and of course none that 

 they were collected in Confederate notes. 

 Avandano Brothers, prior to the receipt of 

 these rents, had loaned Ribas on them, and in 

 anticipation of them, several thousand dollars, 

 which remained unpaid, and for which they 

 claimed a right to hold the rents or pay them- 

 selves out of them. At the time the Confed- 

 erate notes were received they were worth 

 about eighty per cent, of their face. At the 

 time this suit was commenced and tried, they 

 were worth nothing. The authority of Avan- 

 dano Brothers to receive these notes for Ribas 

 was not questioned, but was substantially con- 

 ceded. Ribas sued Avandano Brothers for the 

 money they had collected for him. Avandano 

 Brothers answered that they had collected for 

 him only Confederate notes ; that they had 

 of these many thousand dollars belonging to 

 Ribas, but that they held them as security for 

 a loan they had made him on the faith of the 

 rents to be collected, before the collection was 

 made. Plaintiff claimed that defendants were 

 bound to remit to him at Paris the amount of 

 the collections, as they had general instruc- 

 tions to do, or they were at least bound to give 

 him notice that the collections had been made 

 that he might convert the notes while they re- 

 tained their value. That under all the circum- 

 stances, the defendants, having received these 

 notes at par on a debt due him, were bound to 

 receive them in payment of the debt due them 

 from him for money loaned. That they were 

 bound to receive them at par in such payment, 

 or, if not at par, that they were bound, at any 

 rate, to receive them at the price or rate they 

 were worth when they received them in pay- 

 ment of rents due Ribas. Defendants, on the 

 other hand, contended that the notes were re- 

 ceived in lieu of money for the benefit of the 

 plaintiff alone ; that they were not bound to re- 

 mit because of instructions to that effect; that 

 if they would otherwise be bound to do so, 

 the blockade in force at that time prevented 

 and excused them. That they were not bound 

 to give notice of the collection, but that plain- 

 tiff was bound to take notice of it, or, at least, 

 to make inquiry of them; that if they would 

 have been bound to give notice ordinarily, the 

 blockade at that time prevented it and excused 

 the omission. That the loan by them to the 

 plaintiff was a matter wholly independent of 

 the other transaction, and was a debt to be 

 paid in full in the legal currency of the day ; 

 that the fact that they had received that cur- 

 rency for plaintiff in payment of debts due to 

 him, gave him no right against them to claim 

 they should receive it on any terms, and much 

 less at par ; that it was received at his risk and 

 had been held so ever since, and that its de- 

 preciation or extinction of the value of it was 

 not a matter for which they were at all respon- 

 sible, and that the loss was not to be borne by 

 them ; that they were no more responsible for 

 the loss on the sum that it would have taken 

 to pay the debt due them for money loaned, 



than they were for the depreciation on the rest 

 of the sum. In short, that their debt waa to 

 be paid them in full, and that he was only en- 

 titled to receive from them the Confederate 

 money they had received for him, acting in 

 their discretion in lieu of money, or an amount 

 equivalent. 



Among the cases in which the action of the 

 court was early invoked, were many of a public 

 character on behalf of the Government by ita 

 officers. Of these some of the most interesting 

 were those of maritime prize, and those aria- 

 ing under the confiscation acts of 1862. Num- 

 bers of these were presented for consideration 

 at an early day. The court immediately de- 

 cided that it had not jurisdiction in cases of 

 prize, holding that, although such questions 

 would ordinarily be embraced by the terms 

 used in the order constituting the court, still 

 that in the very nature of the court, deriving 

 its powers and existence, not from the Consti- 

 tution or laws of the United States, but from 

 the chief executive officer and military head 

 of that Government, exercising powers confer- 

 red* on him as such officer by the law of nations, 

 and constituted for and holding its sessions in 

 territory held in military occupation by the 

 forces of the United States, and over which his 

 powers of government were derived from the 

 conquest and military occupation of. it by forces 

 under his command, and from the necessities 

 arising from that condition of things, it had not 

 jurisdiction for such purposes, and it declined 

 to entertain them. 



A considerable number of suits were also 

 brought on behalf of the United States to en- 

 force the laws of 1862 for the confiscation of 

 the property of those who had taken active 

 part in the rebellion, and property to a large 

 amount was seized by the marshal of the court. 

 In answer to these proceedings it was insisted 

 that the court had not jurisdiction in cases of 

 this class, and very able and elaborate argu- 

 ments were heard. Mr. George S. Lacey, Mr. 

 "William H. Hunt, and Mr. C. Roselius (the 

 last an eminent member of the bar of New Or- 

 leans), appearing for the claimants, and Mr. 

 Lamont, the prosecuting attorney of the court 

 appearing for the Government. This argument 

 occupied several days, and at the close of it 

 the court took time for consideration. "While 

 this question remained undecided, the Consti- 

 tutional Courts of the United States for that 

 district were organized and opened, and all 

 business of the kind was transferred, with the 

 approbation of both courts, to the District 

 Court, that being the court in which, by the 

 law itself, questions arising under it were _di- 

 rected to be tried. The question of jurisdiction 

 so ably argued was never decided, and was in 

 effect by subsequent events withdrawn from 

 consideration. It was understood, however, 

 and probably with the assent of the judge 

 himself, that he had great doubts of his juris- 

 diction, and inclined to the opinion that he had 

 none ; that he thought that the question was 



