Opinion of the Court.

being made to appear, it was held that a patent issued to the assignee of the warrantee conveyed a superior legal title. The conclusion is summed up by Chief Justice Black, in the opinion of the court, as follows (p. 302): "That where a warrant is issued to one person and the purchase money is paid by another, and the patent is afterwards taken out by the nominal warrantee, the right of him who paid the purchase money is gone, unless he takes possession of the land or brings ejectment to recover it within twenty-one years from the date of the warrant; and after that lapse of time he cannot recover, no matter how clearly he may be able to prove that the legal owner was in the beginning a trustee for him. When

I say that the suit must be brought within twenty-one years from the date of the warrant, I speak of a case like the present one in which the alleged trust is proved by the naked and solitary fact of the payment of purchase money. Where the cestui que trust has superintended the survey, and paid the officer's fees, or exercised other acts of ownership over the land, the presumption in favor of the trustee would perhaps not begin to arise until he did some act of hostility, such as selling his title, or taking out a patent to himself."

In the present case the evidence admitted was held to establish a prima facie legal title in Dr. Thomas Ruston. It was sufficient to establish that he paid the purchase money, and the other proof in the case showed that he and those who claimed under him exercised acts of ownership over the property until their possession was disturbed violently by the defendants below in the year 1875. The defendants were able to offer nothing in opposition to this, except the patent under which there had been no claim of title for more than seventy-five years, and which was not connected by any proof, other than its own recitals, with the warrant and survey.

In Glass v. Gilbert, 58 Penn. St. 266, it was decided that the doctrine of Strimpfler v. Roberts, 18 Penn. St. 283 [S. C..57 Am. Dec. 606], and Me Barron v. Glass, 30 Penn. St. 133, that a trust will not be sustained between the warrantee and one who has paid the purchase money after twenty-one years, without possession taken by the claimant, &c., does not apply to a

Opinion of the Court.

stranger to the title of the warrantee. If twenty-one years elapse before interference by a junior survey, the presumption in favor of the first, although a chamber survey, becomes absolute. It follows from the foregoing that the evidence introduced by the plaintiffs below was competent and sufficient to establish in Dr. Ruston a legal title to the lands in question.

The next assignment of error is founded upon the objection made to the admission of the record and proceedings in the Orphans' Court of Philadelphia County, resulting in the sale of the title of Nicholas Le Favre to the Lewis Walker tract to Joseph Brobst, by the deed of May 9, 1837. This objection was, that it appeared from the face of the petition for the sale of the real estate of the decedent that the debts, to pay which it was alleged that the sale was necessary, were barred by the statute of limitations, and that, as a consequence, the Orphans' Court had no jurisdiction to make the order of sale. The course of proceeding taken in the present case, as shown by the transcript, was, 1st, a petition to the Orphans' Court of Philadelphia for authority to sell, that being the court which had jurisdiction of the accounts of the executor; 2d, a petition to the Orphans' Court of Northumberland County, in which the land was situated, an order of sale granted thereon, and sale made, and, as required by the express provisions of the statute of 1832, then in force, the return of the sale made to and confirmed by the same court sitting in the county where the land is situated. It is scarcely necessary to cite authority in support of the proposition that the orders, judgments, and decrees of the Orphans' Court, in a case where it had jurisdiction of the subject-matter, cannot be impeached collaterally; much less is it so in the present case, because the statute of Pennsylvania of March 29, 1832, 2 Brightly's Purdon's Digest, p. 1279, pl. 3, (11th ed.,) provides as follows: "The Orphans' Court is hereby declared to be a court of record, with all the qualities and incidents of a court of record at common law; its proceedings and decrees in all matters within its jurisdiction shall not be reversed or avoided collaterally in any other court; but they shall be liable to reversal or modification or alteration on appeal to the Supreme Court, as hereinafter

Opinion of the Court.

directed." Iddings v. Cairns, 2 Grant (Penn.), 88; Riland v. Eckret, 23 Penn. St. 215. In Dreishner v. Allentown Water Co., 52 Penn. St. 225, 229, Mr. Justice Strong said: "Orphans' Court decrees are doubtless conclusive. They cannot be impeached collaterally."

The next assignment of error is founded upon the refusal of the court to admit as evidence the certified copy of the patent from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to Peter Grahl, dated April 12, 1797, with a recital therein of the fact that Lewis Walker, by deed dated November 27, 1793, had conveyed the tract in question to Peter Grahl. The legal title of Thomas Ruston to the premises in dispute, established by the warrant and survey and payment of the purchase money, was perfected by the return made by the deputy surveyor into the land office on February 23, 1795. According to the doctrine established by the authorities already cited, it was not competent for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to affect that title by a subsequent patent to a stranger. Peter Grahl, the patentee, was not connected with the title under the warrant and survey, otherwise than by the recital contained in the patent itself, that the tract had been previously conveyed to him by Lewis Walker. Clearly that recital was not evidence against the plaintiffs, for, if the patent could not take effect against them without it, it could not give any effect to that recital. Their right had already vested prior to the existence of the patent, and the grant to them could not be affected by a subsequent grant to a stranger. That such is the uniform course of decisions in Pennsylvania appears by numerous cases. Penrose v. Griffith, 4 Binney, 231; Maclay v. Work, 5 Binney, 154; Woods v. Wilson, 37 Penn. St. 379; Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. v. Dimock, 47 Penn. St. 393; Urket v. Coryell, 5 W. & S. 60; Balliott v. Bauman, 5 W. & S. 150, 155; Smith v. Vasbinder, 77 Penn. St. 127, 130,

It is next assigned for error that the court below erred in rejecting that portion of the return of William Gray, deputy surveyor, offered to be read in evidence by the defendants below. That portion of the return related to other surveys in the same township, returned as belonging to Dr. Ruston, and

Syllabus.

was offered for the ostensible purpose of explaining that part of the return of William Gray, the deputy surveyor, and the assessment for taxes received in evidence on the part of the plaintiff below, and in order to show that the taxes alleged to have been paid by Dr. Thomas Ruston might have been paid upon other tracts than the Lewis Walker tract in controversy. It seems to us, however, very clear that the offer was rightly rejected; that the part of the return offered related to other lands than the tract in question, was wholly irrelevant to the issue in the case, and did not tend to prove any material fact.

Neither was there any error in the other rulings of the court excepted to, in reference to other offers of evidence by the defendants below, made with the view of showing that Thomas Ruston paid taxes and made claims to other surveys in the name of Lewis Walker than that of the tract in dispute. None of them tended to show that Ruston was not the owner of the Lewis Walker tract in controversy, whatever they may have shown with reference to his claims to other tracts for which warrants and surveys had been made in the same name.

This disposes of all the questions raised by the assignments of error.

We find no error in the record, and the judgment is accordingly

Affirmed.

UNITED STATES v. ARJONA.

CERTIFICATE' OF DIVISION FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Submitted January 3, 1887.- Decided March 7, 1887.

It is within the constitutional power of Congress to enact laws to provide for the punishment of the offences of counterfeiting notes of a foreign bank or corporation, or of having in possession a plate from which may be printed counterfeits of the notes of a foreign bank or corporation; and it is not necessary to allege in an indictment for such an offence, or to show, that the notes of such a bank or corporation are notes of money or issue of a foreign Government, sovereign, or

Opinion of the Court.

power; nor is it necessary to allege that the offence is "an offence against the Law of Nations."

The counterfeiting of foreign securities, whether national or corporate, which have been put out under sanction of public authority at homeespecially the counterfeiting of bank notes and bank bills is an offence against the Law of Nations. The United States being bound to protect a right secured by the Law of Nations to another nation or its people, Congress has the constitutional power to enact laws for that purpose; but this does not prevent a State from enacting laws to punish the same act when it may be an offence against the authority of the state as well as that of the United States.

INDICTMENT under the act of May 16, 1884, 23 Stat. 22, to prevent and punish the counterfeiting within the United States of notes, bonds, and other securities of foreign governments. The court below certified a Division in Opinion on several points. The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Attorney General for plaintiff.

Mr. George W. Wingate and Mr. Augustus A. Levey for defendant.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the

court.

This is an indictment containing three counts against Ramon Arjona, for violations of § 3 and 6, of the act of May 16, 1884, c. 52, 23 Stat. 22, "to prevent and punish the counterfeiting within the United States of notes, bonds, and other securities of foreign Governments." The first and second counts were found under § 6 of the statute, and the third under § 3.

The statute makes the following things criminal:

1. SEC. 1. Forging or counterfeiting within the United States, with intent to defraud, "any bond, certificate, obligation, or other security of any foreign Government, issued or put forth under the authority of such foreign Government, or any treasury note, bill, or promise to pay issued by such foreign Government, and intended to circulate as money either by law, order, or decree of such foreign Government."

2. SEC. 2. Knowingly, and with intent to defraud, uttering,