ABBOTT VS. BALT. AND RAPP. STEAM PACKET CO. 549

ever balances may remain due to the crew, after crediting their
proportion of the amount due the captain as aforesaid, they
shall be paid out of the proceeds of the sales made by the re-
ceiver, as preferred creditors—that the parties who furnished
supplies for the vessel shall be entitled to receive a distributive
share of the balance of those proceeds, for the sums which
may remain due them, after the application to their payment of
their proportion of the amount due from the company to the
captain; but that the holders of the drafts given by the captain
on the 7th of December, 1846, shall receive nothing but the
dividend of the amount due the captain, distributed as before
explained, as I think all they can fairly claim is to participate
in that fund.

The only remaining claim which it is necessary to notice, is
that presented by Alexander J. Marshall, numbered 53 in the
statement of claims by the Auditor. Without stopping to in-
quire whether the obligation upon which this claim is founded
is the obligation of the company, or of the gentleman who
signed the same as president, or whether the terms upon which
it was given have been complied with or not, I am of opinion,
that regarding this obligation as properly executed to bind the
company, it is still not a valid instrument as against them, for
the want of authority to enter into such an engagement.

It has been already stated, that this company was incorpo-
rated "for the purpose of establishing and conducting a line
of steamboats and stages or carriages between Baltimore and
Fredericksburg, and the several ports and places on the Rap-
pahannock, and on the rivers and waters of the Chesapeake
bay, for the conveyance of passengers and transportation of
merchandise and other articles."

The object of the charter was to authorize the transportation
of passengers and merchandise between Baltimore and Freder-
icksburg; but the purpose contemplated by the improvement,
in aid of which the obligation under consideration was given,
as declared upon the face of the instrument, was to open the
Rappahannock river, and render it navigable, &c., to the basin
in or near Fredericksburg. The improvement proposed to be