William Johnson

“ In excuse for this, it is urged that the complainant committed the first fault; that had he been punctual in his payments, Boyce would have been able to procure to be executed to himself, a title that would have enabled him to comply with his agreement. But the state of his title is before us, and a mere tender of money was not sufficient to give him a legal estate. He must still have passed through the delays and casualties incident to a suit in equity, before he could have acquired such an estate as would have satisfied the just claims of the complainant. ”

“ It has been farther argued for the appellants, that reducing the agreement to writing precludes a recurrence to all representations; and to establish this doctrine, a passage from Sugden has been quoted. It cannot be doubted that, in the language of the author, reducing an agreement to writing is, in most cases, an argument against fraud. But it is very far from a conclusive argument, as is previously shown by the same author on the same page. The doctrine will not be contended for, that a written agreement cannot be relieved against on the ground of false suggestions ”

“ In a purchase of nine hundred and fifty acres at twenty dollars an acre, such a discrepancy between facts and representations as would add thirty-three and a-third, or perhaps fifty per cent per acre to the cost, is not a case for mere compensation. ”

“ And suppose the utmost effect be given to the testimony of the appellants relative to the actual extent to which the island was subject to inundation; still it leaves wide ground for the charge of misrepresentation.
The testimony is full to establish that, in several years, the whole has been overflowed. And the most favourable state of facts will leave from one hundred to one hundred and fifty acres, instead of fifteen or twenty, subject to this casualty in ordinary years. ”

“ The bill was filed to obtain the rescision of an agreement entered into on the 3d of July 1818, between James Boyce, the appellants' testator and devisor, and the complainant, for the sale of a tract of land lying on the Homochito river, in the state of Mississippi.
The grounds set forth in the bill are fraudulent misrepresentations.
1. As to the testator's title to the land. 2. As to the locality of the land. 3. As to the liability of the land to inundation. 4. As to the general description of the character and quality of part of the land not examined by complainant. ”