amount of purchase money to be paid by Judge Watrous and his partners for these lands, and their actual value at the time of the sale. And I will start out with the well-settled principle of law, that a purchaser, with a notice of fraud in the sale on the part of those selling, becomes a party to the fraud.
Here, then, as the evidence shows, we see a body of sixty thousand acres of choice land, worth, at the time of sale, at least $100,000, with land scrip to the amount of "ten or twelve thousand acres," sold for the paltry sum of $6,200. This scrip had a cash market value at the time of the sale, nearly, if not quite, equal to the whole amount of the purchase money; but, located on a questionable title, its market value was much more, which would render the La Vega title an absolute donation to these parties. These lands were in the hands of trustees, Messrs. M. B. Menard and Nathaniel F. Williams. The. latter was the brother of Mrs. St. John, the party for whose benefit the sale was made; the other was one of the large land operators in Texas, and both were intimately acquainted with the value of property of this description. The title, also, had been derived through Samuel M. Williams, also a brother of Mrs. St. John, who was the actor in obtaining the title, and who knew all about it. If there was any defect in that title, he knew of it. If there was a reason for selling it cheap, he knew of it.
Further: it is to be noticed that shortly previous to the sale of this land, the case of Hancock vs. McKinney had been decided in the district court of the State, wherein a title, exactly similar to the La Vega title, as admitted by Judge Watrous himself, had been adjudged to be valid. So identical were the titles, as the testimony shows, that it may be considered that the adjudication was upon this very title, purchased from Williams by Judge Watrous and his partners.
Yet, under all these circumstances, this large body of land, worth $100,000 at least, and the title to which had just been declared valid by the district court of the State, is sold by gentlemen who are acting under the obligations of a trust, and who are well acquainted with the value of the land, for a few cents an acre! I ask, do not all these circumstances combine to show that there was a known and acknowledged defect in the title? They irresistibly point to the fact that Williams knew that there was no power of attorney from La Vega to perfect the title. They incontestably prove that it was a corrupt and speculative sale of defective title. Let me place this question before honorable Senators:
Suppose that the action of the trustees, Menard and Williams, or her other agents making this sale and conveyance, had been called into question by Mrs. St. John (for whose benefit the sale was made); suppose she had come into court and had said that the sale was not fair, and moved to set it aside: is there any court of equity in the land that would have refused the application? No. The inequality between the value of the land and the amount of the purchase money is too egregious to be overlooked. It is the very sign and badge of fraud to the transaction. It proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the knowledge of the parties of the defects of the title, and existence of a corrupt conspiracy to supply this all-important link, and without which it was wholly worthless, as subsequent events have shown, by a forged document, and by using Judge Watrous' court to sustain such forgrd muniment of title.
