Opinion of the court. $6000, telling him the trustees might charge him for the laud a little more than $5000, but that he would make it up. The remaining bonds, he states, were taken by Rayburu to be invested in lauds for Mrs. Kitchen. He does not admit that he authorized the application of any of those remaining bonds to the payment of his debt to Rayburn. The testimony of Rayburn is that Kitchen not only gave him the five bonds towards the liquidation of the debt, but that he also said if they were not sufficient, he (Rayburn) might use a sufficient number of the others in his possession (meaning those for which the receipt was given) to pay himself for the undivided half of the St. Luke lands, valued at $10,000 by Kitchen himself. If this is true there is an end of the plaintiff's case, for it clearly appears that the bonds could not be used in the entry or purchase of the railroad company's lands, aud that the whole of them, one hundred and twenty-four in number, were sold for $10,000, a sum not greater than the agreed value of the St. Luke lands. The plaintiff's bill affirms that sale, and it seeks to follow the proceeds subsequently invested, in part, in the land bought from Timberman. It is not necessary, however, to determine whether the testimony of Rayburn in this particular is a true account of the transaction. There is another aspect of the case which is controlling. The arrangement between Kitchen and Rayburn, in which the latter surrendered his claim to the St. Luke lands, accepted bonds in payment of the debt due him, and assumed a trust of other bonds, even if it was such as the plaintiffs allege, was fraudulently obtained by Kitchen. He had been president of the railroad company. He knew its condition. He knew that the bonds were almost valueless. He had declared that under certain circumstances they would not be worth more than five cents on the dollar. Having himself a claim upon the company, he had refused to receive the company's bonds in liquidation of the claim at more than $50 each, including unpaid coupons, and he had settled with the company, receiving one hundred and sixty-eight bouds at that rate. Yet, in order to effect his Opinion of the court. bargain with Rayburn, who was an illiterate man, he represented to him that the bonds were very good; that he (Rayburn) could make the money at any time out of them; that he could enter eleven hundred acres anywhere about Clark ton, Dunklin County, with five of them, paying all expenses; that the lands about Clarkton, known to Rayburn, were railroad lands, and subject to be entered with those bonds at that time. All these representations were false, and were kuown by Kitchen to be false. Moreover, he was assured that Rayburn had no knowledge upon the subject, and that confidence was reposed upon his statements. It was thus the contracts were obtained. Rayburn gave up his boud for the conveyance of the St. Luke lands, accepted the bonds, and assumed the trust. And it was not until after he had discovered that neither the trustees of the railroad company nor the company itself had any lands about Clarkton, or elsewhere, that could be entered with the bonds, either at five dollars per acre or at any price, that the bonds were almost valueless, and that Kitchen had offered to sell one hundred and sixty-eight similar bonds for $8423, that he sold those transferred and deposited with him for $10,000. The complainants, then, do not come into court with clean hands. They are seeking the benefit of a contract obtained by their fraud, or by the fraud of Kitchen. Hence they can have no standing in a court of equity. Such a court will not lend its power to assist or protect a fraud. It will not even enforce an unconscionable bargain. In Bein v. Heath* it was said to be a principle in chancery "that he who asks relief must have acted in good faith. The equitable powers of this court can never be exerted in behalf of one who has acted fraudulently, or who by deceit or any unfair means has gained an advantage. To aid a party in such a case would make this court the abettor of iniquity." For this reason, if for no other, the plaintiffs cannot succeed. They are seeking in a court of equity to derive an advantage from their own wrong. DECREE AFFIRMED. 6 Howard, 247. Statement of the case. CALDWELL'S CASE. 1. In a contract made for the transportation of military supplies and stores in the Western country, and in the presence of actual war, between the military department of the governinent and a private party, the terms "posts, depots, and stations" are to be taken in their military sense and not in the sense of railway posts, depots, and stations. 2. When such a contract speaks of military posts or depots on the west bank of a river, posts, one of which is 92 miles west of the river, and another 132 miles, and a third 191 miles, cannot be considered as within the designation. APPEALS from the Court of Claims. Caldwell sued the United States to recover damages for the breach of a transportation contract, dated March 12th, 1866; the government then being at war with Western Indians. The articles on which the points in dispute arose were thus: "ARTICLE I. The said Caldwell shall receive at any time, in any of the months from April to September, inclusive, during the year 1866, from the officers or agents of the quartermaster's department at Forts Leavenworth and Riley, in Kansas; at Fort Kearney, Nebraska Territory; Fort Sedgwick, Colorado Territory; Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory; and at any points or places at which posts or depots shall be established during the continuance of this contract, ON the west bank of the Missouri River, north of Fort Leavenworth and south of latitude 42 degrees north, all such military stores and supplies as may be offered to him for transportation . . . by the officer of the quartermaster's department, at any or all of the above points or places, and transport the same with dispatch, and deliver them. ... to the officer of the quartermaster's department on duty at any of the posts or depots which are now or may be hereafter established in the Territory of Colorado north of 40 degrees north, and at Denver City, and in the Territories of Nebraska, Dakota, Idaho, und Utah, south of latitude 44 degrees north, including Fort Reno, and east of longitude 114 degrees west of Greenwich. "ARTICLE II. The said Caldwell agrees to transport un. Statement of the case. der this agreement, from the posts, depots, or stations named in Article I, or from and to any other posts, depots, or stations that may be established within the district named in said article, any number of pounds of military stores and supplies, from and between 100,000 lbs. and 10,000,000 lbs. in the aggregate. "ARTICLE XI. The said Caldwell shall transport all the military stores and supplies for which the quartermaster's department may require wagon transportation by contract, on the route specified by this agreement, during the year 1866, provided the weight of such military stores and supplies shall not exceed, in the aggregate, 10,000,000 lbs.; yet nothing herein shall be so construed as to forbid or prevent the United States from using its own means of transportation for such service, whenever it may be deemed advisable to do so." The case, as found by the Court of Claims, was thus: At the date of the contract the only military posts on the west bank of the Missouri River, within the said district, were Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas, and Omaha, in Nebraska Territory. On or before the 30th day of March, 1866, the president of the Union Pacific Railroad advised the QuartermasterGeneral that the company had sixty miles of their line completed west of Omaha, and that the company expected to complete the first hundred miles by the 10th of June. In the summer and autumn of 1866 the railroad company had extended their line westward to Columbus, Lone Tree, and Kearney's Station, and it offered to the United States a more expeditious and cheaper mode of transportation than wagon transportation. In the summer of 1866 the United States had collected at Omaha military stores and supplies, intended for the supply of posts west of the Missouri River, and within the district covered by the contract with Caldwell, and in the year 1866 they sent by the said railroad quantities of the said stores and supplies from Omaha to Columbus, Lone Tree, and Kearney's Station, the successive termini of the railroad as it was extended westward. In the mouth of June, 1866, the United States contracted. Statement of the case. with one Kountze for the transportation of the said stores and supplies from Columbus, Lone Tree, and Kearney's Station to Fort McPherson, Fort Laramie, and Fort Kearney, and Kountze, under the said contract, and in the year 1866, performed the transportation; that is to say, from April to September, 1866, he transported 2,945,484 lbs., and in October transported 693,964 lbs. Previous to the delivery of the said military stores and supplies to the railroad company, and before the making of the said contracts with Kountze, Caldwell was prepared, and gave notice to the United States of his readiness to transport them, under and according to his contract. Previous to the delivery of the stores and supplies to Kountze, but after the making of the said contracts with him, Caldwell was prepared and claimed of the United States the right, under his contract, to transport them from the termini of said railroad to such places, within his contract, as the United States might designate. No notice was given by the United States to Caldwell, under his contract, to transport the military stores and supplies transported by said Kountze. But on the 11th of June, 1866, he received notice from the United States that transportation, under his contract, would not be needed. The cost of the transportation of the said stores and supplies delivered to Kountze in any of the mouths from April to September, inclusive, would have been to Caldwell $1.45 per 100 lbs. per hundred miles. The Court of Claims, holding that the expression "posts and depots on the west bank of the Missouri River," &c., was not confined to posts and depots "on the water-line of the river," but was used "merely to denote the most easterly line of the district covered by the contract," and that the terms "posts, depots, or stations" did not, of necessity, mean military posts, depots, or stations, awarded to Caldwell $35,689.01, as damages for the failure to deliver 2,945,484 lbs. of supplies, which were transported from Omaha to Columbus, to Lone Tree, and to Kearney Station by rail, and thence to Fort McPherson, Fort Laramie, and Fort |