Opinion of the court. and sustained by the evidence-on which the judgment in this case can be supported. If the County of Pontotoc, according to the requirements of the law, voted a subscription to the stock of the railroad; the board of police levied a tax to pay for it; the tax was collected; and the president of the board instructed Bell, who was the sheriff, and had the money, to pay it to the agent of the company, who also demanded payment, then the liability of Bell is fixed, and he cannot be allowed to interpose collateral matters by way of defence. The money in the hands of Bell vested in the railroad corporation so soon as the president of the board of police drew the order, and, on presentation, he was obliged to pay. His duty was obedience. It was no part of his business to sit in judgment on the proceedings of the board of police, nor was he at liberty to constitute himself an arbiter to settle the differences that had arisen, or might arise, between the county, the tax-payers, and the company, growing out of the vote to subscribe stock, and the refusal to make the subscription. So far as Bell was concerned, the board of police had the exclusive power over this subject; and if in the exercise of that power the president of the board directed him to pay the money to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, he could not question the authority nor review the decision. And the omission to give the bond, as by law required, cannot affect his liability, although it may lessen the security of the company. There is great confusion in the record in relation to the disposition of the demurrers and pleas in abatement; but, as Bell filed a plea to the merits, and the parties went to trial, all antecedent irregularities were waived. There is no error in the record, and the judgment below is AFFIRMED WITH COSTS. Statement of the case. RYAN . THOMAS. Where a decision of the highest court of law or equity of a State is in favor of the validity of a statute of or an authority exercised under the United States, drawn in question in such court, this court, under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act (by which alone it has jurisdiction of the judgments of State courts), has no revisory power. THOMAS brought suit against Ryan, in the St. Louis Land Court, an inferior State court of Missouri, for a tract of land in that State. The only question was as to the validity of a patent granted by the United States to a fictitious person. The inferior court held that the patent was valid; but the Supreme Court of the State, in 1857, reversed the judgment, and held that the patent to a fictitious person was a nullity. The case having been tried again in the inferior court, was again, in 1860, before the Supreme Court of the State, and it being proved that the supposed fictitious person was simply a false name assumed by an actual person, that court held that, although a patent issued to a person not in existence was a nullity, yet that a patent to a person under an assumed name was not void; and if such person should, under such assumed name, transfer the land to a purchaser, the title would enure to the latter; and they again reversed the judgment of the Land Court. The case was a third time tried in the inferior court, and, in 1864, a third time reached the Supreme Court, which affirmed the decision of that court, and declared that no new point was presented. Ryan now brought the case by writ of error here, conceiving, apparently, that this court had jurisdiction under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, which authorizes a final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of law or equity of a State to be brought here on error in point of law, provided the validity of a statute of or an authority exercised under the United States is drawn in question in the State court, and the decision is against that validity. Mr. Coffey, for the defendant in error, moved to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction, there being, as he argued, no Opinion of the court. question which, under the Judiciary Act, could give this court appellate jurisdiction of the case. Mr. Blair, contra. The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court. We have no jurisdiction of the judgments of State courts except under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, and, upon examining the record, we do not find that the case presented is within any clause of it. The suit in the State court was for the recovery of a tract of land in St. Louis, Missouri. The proofs of the plaintiff consisted of a patent of the United States to one Johnson, dated January 5th, 1843; a certificate of entry by Johnson, issued by the register of the St. Louis Land Office, on the 19th of August, 1829; an assignment of the same date by Johnson and the plaintiff, indorsed upon the certificate, and a decree, upon default, of the St. Louis Land Court, in a suit by the plaintiff against Johnson, adjudging and decreeing the title to be vested in the possessor. The defence rested upon the ground that Johnson was a fictitious person, but the court held the patent not void, if issued to a real person and transferred by his indorsement to the plaintiff, though such person in making the entry and obtaining the certificate used a fictitious name. The patent offered by the plaintiffs seems to have been the only authority under the United States drawn in question in the State court, and the decision was in favor of its validity. It is only when, in such a case, the decision is against the authority that this court has revisory jurisdiction. It is suggested, in the brief for the plaintiff in error, that a subsequent patent was relied on by him when defendant in the State court, and that the decision having been against that patent may be reviewed here. But we find no such patent and no such decision in the record. The writ of error must therefore be DISMISSED. Statement of the case. PEARSON V. DUANE. 1. Although a common carrier of passengers by sea, as a master of a steamship, may properly refuse a passage to a person who has been forcibly expelled by the actual though violent and revolutionary authorities of a town, under threat of death if he return, and when the bringing back and landing of such passenger would in the opinion of such master tend to promote further difficulty-yet this refusal should precede the sailing of the ship. If the passenger have violated no inflexible rule of the ship in getting aboard the vessel, have paid or tendered, himself or through a friend, the passage-money, and have conducted himself properly during the voyage, the master has no right, as matter of law, to stop a returning vessel, put him aboard it, and send him back to the port of departure. And if he do so, damages will be awarded against him on a proceeding in admiralty. 2. However, where a person who had been thus banished from a place got on board a vessel going back to it, determined to defy the authorities there and take his chance of life, and the captain, who had not known the history of the case until after the vessel was at sea-on meeting a return steamer, of a line to which his own vessel belonged--stopped his own and sent the man aboard the returning one, to be taken to the port where he embarked-such captain, not acting in any malice, but acting from a humane motive, and from a belief that the passenger, if landed at the port where his own vessel was going, would be hanged-in such a case, the apprehended danger mitigates the act, and the damages must be small. Accordingly, in such a case, this court, on appeal from a decree which had given four thousand dollars damages, modified it by allowing but fifty dollars, with directions, moreover, that each party should pay his own costs on the appeal. 3. In a case such as above described, a passenger is entitled to compensation for the injury done him by being put on board the return vessel, so far as that injury arose from the act of the captain of the other vessel in putting him there. But he is not entitled to damages for injuries that he suffered from obstructions which he afterwards met with in getting to the place from whence he had been expelled and where he wanted to return; and which injuries were not caused by this act, but were owing to the fact that all to whom he afterwards applied for passage to that place knew the power and determination of the authorities there and were afraid to carry him back. IN the month of June, 1856, the steamship Stevens, a common carrier of passengers, of which Pearson was master, on her regular voyage from Panama to San Francisco, arrived at the intermediate port of Acapulco, where Duane got on Statement of the case. board, with the intention of proceeding to San Francisco. He had, shortly before this, been banished from that city by a revolutionary, yet powerful and organized body of men, called "The Vigilance Committee of San Francisco," upon penalty of death in case of return. This committee had, in the fore part of June, against his will, placed him on the Golden Age, a steamer in the harbor of San Francisco, destined for Panama, with directions that he should be conveyed beyond the limits of California; and he was forcibly carried to the Mexican port of Acapulco. The presence of the Stevens afforded the first opportunity to get back, which he was anxious to embrace, being willing to encounter the risk to which his return might expose him. Duane went openly on the boat, at the public gangway, and talked freely with some of the officers and passengers. It is not certain that the master knew of his being aboard until after the ship got to sea, but no directions had been given for his exclusion, and although he was without a ticket, or money to buy one, yet a passenger, who had the means, offered to pay the purser his fare, who declined receiving it. It was usual for those persons who wished to secure a passage, to procure a ticket at Acapulco, but there was no imperative rule of the ship requiring it, and the customary fare was often paid to the purser after the boat had left the port. There was no evidence that Duane would have been excluded, had the master been aware that he was on board before he left Acapulco, for it was quite clear that the circumstances of his banishment were unknown at that time. The master, Pearson, was aware that the Vigilance Committee were in control of San Francisco, and ascertained in some way that Duane had been expelled by them from California, and if he returned, would be in danger of losing his life. Having learned this, he resolved to put Duane aboard the first down ship he met, and send him back to Acapulco. The steamer Sonora, commanded by Captain Whiting, and one of the same line of steamers of which Pearson was master, very soon came in sight, and was stopped. Whiting in |