John Marshall

“ The bill filed in the county court Halifax, in November 1815, charges that George Carrington in his life time exchanged certain lands lying in the said county with John Williams deceased, for a military claim of four thousand acres to which the said Williams was entitled. That the said George, by the direction of the said Williams, caused his land in Halifax to be conveyed to a certain John Camp who was put in possession thereof; but the patents for the military lands not having been issued, no conveyance was made of the legal title to them. ”

“ Maddock, in his Treatise on Chancery, vol. 1, p. 301, says, 'if therefore it be clearly shown what the agreement was, and that it has been partly performed, that is, that an act has been done, not a mere voluntary act, or merely introductory or ancillary to the agreement, but a part execution of the substance of the agreement, and which would not have been done unless on account of the agreement, an act, in short, unequivocally referring to, and resulting from the agreement, and such that the party would suffer an injury amounting to fraud, by the refusal to execute that agreement ”

“ The plaintiff prays that this decree and all the proceedings in the suit may be taken as a part of his bill. The assignments directed by the decree were made by the said John B. Scott, but George Carrington departed this life soon afterwards, not having obtained the patents. By his last will he devised these lands to the plaintiff, who has applied for patents, but is informed at the land office, that the assignment of the said Scott does not authorize the register of the land office in Kentucky to issue them. ”