David Josiah Brewer

“ It is enough for the purposes of this case that it was with the general acquiescence of the creditors; that its purpose was equality between them; that it was not challenged for many years; that the trustee, on the faith of its validity, carried on business to an enormous extent, and assumed large liabilities; and that the creditors accepted payments made out of the proceeds of that business, and the trust created by this conveyance. Equity will not reach out its hand to disturb that which all parties have considered settled for so many years. ”

“ The court is not bound to shut its eyes to the evident character of the transaction. It will never lend its aid to carry out an unconscionable bargain, but will leave the party to his remedy at law.' No language could be more appropriate to the case before us. ”

“ So his purchase is one simply to speculate upon the chances of successfully attacking transfers of large property made for the benefit of creditors, and with the view of depriving them of the benefits of such transfers. It is a case where equity, true to its ideas of substantial justice, refuses to be bound by the letter of legal procedure, or to lend its aid to a mere speculative purchase which threatens injury and ruin to a large body of honest creditors, who have trusted for the payment of their debts to the legal validity of proceedings theretofore taken. ”

“ Either this stock had been so appropriated by prior transfers and transactions as to be absolutely worthless in the hands of the Spragues, or else it represented more than a half million of dollars. It is doubtless true that property of large value, both real and personal, may be incumbered with mortgages or other liens to an amount something like its value, so that there remains in the owner but an equity of redemption of trifling value, and a creditor may, at execution sale, or otherwise, buy at a small price such equity, with a view to redemption from the liens ”

“ On August 2, 1883, Evan Randolph, the testator of complainants, filed his bill in equity in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Rhode Island, for the purpose of establishing his title to 4,022 shares of the capital stock of the Quidnick Company, claiming to have purchased these shares on execution sales in March, 1883, for $275. The Quidnick Company was a corporation organized under the laws of Rhode Island in May, 1862, with a capital stock of $500,000, divided into 5,000 shares. ”