DOUB VS. BARNES. 133

Brown, which passed to -Mrs. Mason, through the Bank of
Baltimore, much reliance is placed by the complainant's solic-
itor, in his effort to show that to let them loose against the land
purchased by him, would be to enable the holder of them to
perpetrate a fraud—upon a correspondence between John M.
Gordon of Baltimore, and Yost, one of the trustees—he,
Yost, being also the attorney of some of the judgment cred-
itors.

Mr. Gordon was not an officer of the bank, but a practicing
lawyer in the city of Baltimore, though not an attorney of
Washington County C ourt, in which the judgments were ren-
dered. The correspondence between him and Mr. Yost covers
a period from the fall of 1840 to 1844, and after a careful read-
ing of it, and an attentive consideration of the argument of the
complainant's counsel, founded upon it, I am unable to deduce
from it the conclusion, without which the assignee cannot be
denied the benefit of her judgments.

Mr. Gordon, it will be observed, was not an officer of the
bank. He was its attorney, either at law, or in fact, and in
neither capacity can it be successfully maintained, he would
have the power to bind his principal by an agreement to sur-
render its lien upon the land, and look exclusively to the trus-
tees, without an authority for that purpose. The opinion of
the Court of Appeals in this case, with reference to the
judgments of Lynch and Craft, is conclusive upon this ques-
tion.

That Mr. Gordon was not authorized to agree to the pro-
visions of this deed, and did not in fact so agree; nay, that he
never saw it, nor was requested to give his consent to it as the
attorney of, or on behalf of the bank; and that he always look-
ed to the payment of the judgments in the order of their
priority, and as liens on the property; is expressly stated by
him in answer to the first cross interrogatory on the part-of the
defendant. An answer which the Chancellor thinks not at all
inconsistent with the whole scope and tenor of the correspond-
ence, and quite in harmony with the answer of the same
witness to the complainant's second interrogatory in chief.
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