Stanley Matthews

“ If a merchant should direct his clerk or other agent to investigate and adjust the claim of a third party upon a prescribed basis, and the adjustment was made accordingly, can it be doubted that the merchant might thereafter, because he had come to the conclusion that the claim was tainted with fraud, or had been already fully paid, or for any other reason, or as a matter of choice, without assigning any reason, decline to recognize what had been done as of any validity, and withdraw the authority under which the proceeding had been taken? ”

“ There is no recital of a mutual submission by the parties of any controversy to an arbitrator. The quartermaster general was quthorized and directed by congress to examine and adjust the claims in question, but not for the purpose of settling and adjudging any controversy in relation thereto between the United States and the claimant. ”

“ The government and the claimant stood, and continued to stand, wholly independent of each other. The government could at any time before payment recall what it had done, and the claimant was at liberty up to the same period to refuse concurrence and assert aliunde his legal rights, if any he had. ”