312 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

Beside expressly denying the charges of fraud, defending the
items of claim impeached by the bill, and placing the defence
of the settlement, upon the ground of compromise; the answer
presents various other objections to the relief sought by the
bill, or to any relief being granted this plaintiff, which will be
briefly noticed hereafter.

The case of Farnam vs. Brooks, 9 Pick., 212, has been very
much pressed by the counsel on both sides, as establishing
principles important to the views which each has attempted to
maintain. That appears to have been the case of a compromise
of unsettled accounts between the parties, by which a smaller
sum was received in satisfaction of the debt than the sum sub-
sequently ascertained to be due; and yet, although the court
decided, expressly, that the charge of fraud was not made out,
they permitted the plaintiff to surcharge and falsify the account
on which the settlement was made. The sum agreed to be re-
ceived in satisfaction in that case, was $60,000; and that
amount was fixed upon, upon a statement of the account, as
prepared by the defendant, by which it appeared, that the sum
actually due, was $64,000, on payment of which, the intestate
of the plaintiff gave to the defendant a receipt in full, and a
transfer of all his interest in the concern in which they were
partners, in relation to the business of which the accounts were
stated. It subsequently appeared, upon a more careful exam-
ination of the account, that the sum really due was $68,000,
growing out of errors, in omitting sums which ought to have
been credited, and charging others which ought not to have
been debited, and upon this ground, and, notwithstanding, the
court expressly declared, "that these errors furnished no ground
of suspicion of unfairness or fraud," the plaintiff was permitted
to surcharge and falsify the account on which the settlement
was made, although nearly twenty years had elapsed from the
date of the settlement to the filing of the bill.

That case, in many of its features, will be found to bear a
close resemblance to the present; and, I am much mistaken,
if the doctrines established by it with so much ability and learn-
ing, will not justify the order which will be passed in this case.