the exclusive navigation of which with steam boats had been granted, by the legislature of New-York, to Livingston and Fulton, under whom the plaintiff below claimed as assignee. On this bill an injunction was granted by the Chancellor, and on the coming in of the answer, which set up a right to navigate with steam boats between the City of NewYork and Elizabethtown, under a license to carry on the coasting trade, granted under the laws of the United States, the defendant below moved to dissolve the injunction, which motion was denied by the Chancellor. The defendant below appealed to the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors; the decretal order, refusing to dissolve the injunction, was affirmed by that Court; and from this last order the defendant below appealed to this Court, upon the ground, that the case involved a question arising under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States.

1821.

Gibbons

V.

Ogden.

The cause was opened for the appellant, by Mr. March 8th. D. B. Ogden; but on inspecting the record, it not appearing that any final decree in the cause, within the terms of the 25th section of the judiciary act of 1789, c. 20. had been pronounced in the State Court, the appeal was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

DECREE. This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record of the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors, of

1821.

Sullivan

V.

the State of New-York. On inspection whereof, it is ORDERED, that the appeal, in this cause, be, and the same is hereby dismissed, it not appearing from Steam Boat the record that there was a final decree in said Court Company. for the Correction of Errors, &c. from which an appeal was taken."

The Fulton

a Vide 4 Johns. Ch. Rep. 150. and 17 Johns. Rep. 488. where the learned reader will find the case reported as decided in the State Courts.

(PRACTICE.)

SULLIVAN et al. v. THE FULTON STEAM BOAT COM

PANY.

In order to maintain a suit in the Circuit Court, the jurisdiction must appear on the record; as if the suit is between citizens of different States, the citizenship of the respective parties must be set forth.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New-York.

This was a bill in equity, filed in the Court below, in which Sullivan, one of the plaintiffs, was described as a citizen of Massachusetts, and others of the plaintiffs, as citizens of Connecticut and Vermont, and the defendants were described as a corporate body incorporated by the legislature of the

State of New-York, for the purpose of navigating, by steam boats, the waters of the East river, or Long Island Sound, in said State. The object of the bill was to obtain an injunction to prevent the defendants from so exercising the privileges granted to them by the said act, and by an assignment from Livingston and Fulton of their rights under certain other acts of the legislature of New-York, as to obstruct the plaintiffs in the right claimed by them under the constitution and laws of the United States, and under a coasting license, of employing a certain steam boat belonging to the plaintiffs in the transportation of goods and passengers in the waters of the States of Connecticut and New-York. The defendants demurred to the bill, and a decree dismissing it was entered pro forma, by consent, and the cause was brought by appeal to this Court.

1821.

Sullivan

V.

The Fulton

Steam Boat
Company.

Mr. Webster, for the appellants, opened the record, March 8th. from which it not appearing that the Court below had jurisdiction, as the respective parties were not described as citizens of different States, the decree, dismissing the bill, was affirmed.

DECREE. On motion of the appellants, by their counsel, and on inspection of the transcript of the record of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New-York, it is DECREED and ORDERED, that the decree of the said Circuit Court, in this case, be, and the same is hereby affirmed, it not appearing from the record that the said Circuit Court had jurisdic

1821.

The Jonquille.

tion in said cause.

The said affirmance to be with

out prejudice to the complainants on the merits of the case.

March 8th.

(PRACTICE.)

The JONQUIlle.

An admiralty suit, where an appeal has been taken from the Circuit Court to this Court, but not prosecuted, will be dismissed, upon producing a certificate from the Court below, that the appeal has been taken, and not prosecuted.

Mr. Wheaton, for the respondents, moved to docket and dismiss the appeal in the case, which was a prize cause, commenced in the Circuit Court of North Carolina, in which a decree for costs and damages had been entered against the captors, from which they appealed, but had not prosecuted their appeal. He produced a certificate from the Court below to that effect.

The COURT stated, that the case was within the spirit of the 20th rule of Court, although that rule applied, in terms, only to writs of error.

Motion granted."

a Vide new rule of Court of the present term. Ante, Rule XXXII.

(CHANCERY.)

HUGHES V. BLAKE.

A decree cannot be pronounced, on the testimony of a single witness, unaccompanied by corroborating circumstances, against a positive denial, by the defendant, of any matter directly charged by the bill, in the defendant's answer, or answer in support of his plea.

A replication to a plea is an admission of the sufficiency of the plea, as much as if it had been set down for argument and allowed; and all that the defendant has to do, is to prove it in point of fact, and a dismission of the bill on the hearing is then a matter of course. Under what circumstances a plea of a former judgment at law, for the cause of action, is a good bar in Equity.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Massachusetts. The object of the bill in equity filed in this case, was to recover from the defendant, Blake, a sum of money arising from the sale of a tract of land, called Yazoo lands, alleged to have been made in 1795, by the defendant, as agent of certain persons named in the bill, in which lands the plaintiff, Hughes, claimed an equitable interest, in common with the immediate principals of the defendants, and, therefore, to be entitled to a proportion of the proceeds resulting from the sale. The bill also charged, that the defendant had rendered himself distinctly liable for a specific sum of money, in virtue of a certain order, having reference to the plaintiff's interest in the lands, drawn by one Gibson, in September, 1796, in favour of the plaintiff, and accepted by the defendant, with certain modifications and conditions, as particularly expressed in the acceptance.

1821.

Hughes.

V.

Blake.