David Josiah Brewer

“ The guaranty of an administrator's bond is not against general wrong-doing on the part of the administrator, but simply against his misconduct while in charge of the property of the estate. When that property passes out of his custody his liability and that of his sureties cease. So when these complainants withdrew the Mounds plantation from the custody of the administrator, and sold it on their own account to Mrs. Hall, they released the sureties on his bond from any further liability in respect to it. ”

“ The mismanagement, if conceded, by Hall as executor of his wife's estate, in no manner affected the question of the liability of the sureties of Hall, as administrator of the estate of King, for a sale of its property. Whatever personal liability Hall may have incurred by the mismanagement of Mrs. Hall's estate, it is no burden resting upon these defendants as sureties on Hall's bond as administrator of King's estate. No liability arises against them, if there were, in fact, unpaid debts against the estate of King, and the property was sold to pay those debts. ”

“ If, by reason of Hall's mismanagement as executor, nothing was left to Mrs. Hal' § estate, their claims against the King estate, as one of two joint debtors, were in no manner impaired; and the sale of the overflow lands belonging to the King estate, in satisfaction of their claims, was neither illegal nor improper; and that, in its worst aspect, is all that the testimony develops in respect to this branch of the case. It should also be noticed that Hall's action in respect to these sales was, in fact, compelled by the complainants themselves. ”