“ In the present case, the United States do not sue for a debt due to them as a government, but as stockholders or copartners for their proportion of the profits accruing on the use of their money, which they have invested in the stock of the corporation, and are to be treated in all respects like any ordinary stockholder, who would be bound to pay a debt due to the bank before he could sustain an action for his dividends. ”

“ The demand of the plaintiffs is not the subject of dispute. The questions to be determined grow out of the set-off filed by the defendants. That claim had its origin in an unsuccessful attempt of the Secretary of the Treasury, through the medium of the Bank of the United States, to transfer to this country the first instalment payable to this government by France, under the convention of the 4th July, 1831. He proposed to discuss very briefly the several points taken in the bill of exceptions, at the last trial in the court below. ”

“ That the evidence in the cause does not show a contract between the government and the bank for the sale of a bill of exchange, but an undertaking on the part of the defendants, as the agents of the plaintiff, to transfer to the United States the first instalment due under the treaty with France, and that the bill was only one of the instruments for carrying the same into effect. And further, that the question of agency is for the jury to decide. ”