Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/703

DNITED STATES V. MOSELT. 689 �The bonds are in the usual form ; they may be said to consist of ihree parts : �(1) The bond proper, by whieh an absolute obligation is created to pay to the United States a specifled sum of money. (2) A recital setting forth that a libel of information, etc., had been filed; that the property was in the custody of the marshal, and their appraised value. (3) The condition or clause of defeasance to the effect that if, on the condemnation of the goods, the obligors shall pay into court their said appraised value, then the obligation to be void, etc �With regard to the libel of information the recital in the , bond further states that it bas been filed on behalf of the United States against 1,650 fur seal-skins, "for reasons and carises in said libel of information mentioned." �It is claimed by the defendants that the effect of this clause is to restrict the obligations of the bondsmen to a liability for the penalty of the bond in case the goods shall be condemned, for the reasons and causes mentioned in the original libel; and that, inasmuch as they were condemned for reasons and causes set forth m an amended libel, the bondsmen are discharged. �But the nature and extent of the obligation assumed by the bonds- men are to be ascertained, not from a clause in the recital which is no essential part of the instrument, and which might have been entirely omitted, but from the terms of the condition or clause of defeasance which specify under what circumstances the obligation shall become void. These are : �" (1) In case the said 1,650 fur seal-skins shall, by tJie final sentence, dearee, orjudgment of the said court, be condemned as forfeited; and (2) if the said Mosely, etc., their heirs, etc., shall thereupon pay into the said court the sum of $6,189.50." �It is plain that the obligation to pay is conditioned upon this con- demnation of the goods as forfeited in the suit then pending. But it is not conditioned upon this condemnation for the precise reasons and causes in the original libel of information mentioned. In the original form of bonds submitted to the court for approval the words "for the causes in said libel set forth" were added in the condition of the bond, but they were stricken out by direction of the judge, as appears by his initiais in the margin. This could only have been done for the purpose of avoiding the very question which is now raised, and of exacting from the claimant to whom the goods were to be delivered an obligation to pay their appraised value in case T.8,uo.9— 44 ��� �