by John Marshall Harlan

“ Price insisted that the United States should reimburse him for the amount so advanced by him, but the officers of the government denied its liability to him on that account. In an elaborate opinion, given March 12, 1854, Atty. Gen. Cushing held that, while the appointment of Van Nostrand as acting purser was lawful and valid under the circumstances, the government could not be charged with the private funds paid to him by Price, although the latter believed at the time that his advance of money to the former was an accommodation to the government in the then unsettled condition of California. ”

“ We perceive nothing in the words or object of the statute that prevents any court of competent jurisdiction, as to subject-matter and parties, from making such orders as may be necessary or appropriate to prevent one who has a claim for money against the government from withdrawing the proceeds of such claim from the reach of his reditors ”

“ Its manifest purpose is not to confer a bounty or gratuity upon any one, but to provide for the ascertainment and payment of a debt due from the United States to a loyal citizen for property of his taken by the United States, and to enable his executor to recover, as part of his estate, proceeds received by the United States from the sale of that property. ”

“ In the year 1857, Samuel Forrest recovered in the supreme court of New Jersey a judgment against Rodman M. Price for the sum of $17,000 and costs. Execution upon that judgment was returned unsatisfied. Forrest died in 1860 intestate. In 1874 his wife, one of the present defendants in error, was appointed and qualified as administratrix of his estate. In the same year she sued out a writ of scire facias to revive the above judgment, and it was revived. ”