“ Thus, when the executors say that John Innes Clark never gave Benjamin Munro authority to take up money or to draw bills, when they assert that Riemsdyk, who was in Batavia, did not take this bill on the credit of the owners of the Patterson, but on the sole credit of Benjamin Munro, they assert facts which cannot be within their own knowledge. In the first instance they speak from belief ”

“ When he intended to utter only a strong conviction of the existence of a particular fact, or what he deemed an infallible deduction from facts which were known to him, he may assert that belief or that deduction in terms which convey the idea of his knowing the fact itself. ”

“ The weight of an answer must also, from the nature of evidence, depend, in some degree, on the fact stated. If a Defendant asserts a fact which is not and cannot be within his own knowledge, the nature of his testimony cannot be changed by the positiveness of his assertion. ”

“ This Court is therefore of opinion that there is no error in so much of the said decree of the Circuit Court for the district of Rhode Island as directs the respondents, the executors of the said John Innes Clark, deceased, to pay to the Complainant the amount of the said bill with interest thereon, from the time when the same became payable to the day on which the said decree was made, and the same as to so much thereof is affirmed. ”

“ The bill charges that the supercargo was empowered verbally, in case of a deficiency of funds at Batavia, to load the ship with a return cargo, to take up money on the joint account of the owners, and, if necessary, to draw bills of exchange therefor on Messrs. ”