Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/485

 HOWABDS V. SELDEM. 473 �Selden and his sureties, to what persons or estates Gordon was in default. and fix the amount of the default due to those estates. The representatives of Cocke and of St. John migni have come in afterwards and called these amounts into question. But it was certainly competent for them to accept as true the amounts decreed them, They have so elected; and Gordon and his sureties, as already said, are estopped from denying any faot or resisting any obligation adjudicated by that decree. The plaintiffs in the suit bave had a right to bring sait on that decree of the Powhatan circuit court, even though they were not, in a technical sense, parties to that suit ; and it is not competent for any party to that suit to object to their recovering under that decree. �6. I come, tberefore, to the last, and, as I conceive, only question of novelty and difficulty in this matter; that is to eay, the question whether or not this court, after entertain- ing the bill of complaint of the Howards as non-residents of the state against sundry resident defendants, and after having caused the non-resident complainants, as well as the other crediter of Gordon and his sureties and of Selden and his sureties, to be fuUy satisfied of their demands ont of the proceeds of a sale of the lands of W. A. Turpin, a surety of Charles Selden, has jurisdiction now to require a surety of Gordon, since discovered to be solvent, to make good to Tur- pin the money which this court has thus exacted of him. I have been unable to find a precedent in which this precise question has arisen, and am thrown upon my own views of the law in passing upon it. That the circuit courts of the United States are courts of equity, vested with ail the powers of the old English high court of chancery, except as modified by acts of congress and the rules prescribed by the supreme court of the United States for the regulation of their proceedings aa courts of equity will not now be denied. See U. S. v. How- land, 4 Wheat. 115; Boyle v. Zacharie, 6 Pet. 658; lavingston V. Story, 9 Pet. 654; RusseU v. Southard, 12 How. 139 ; Neve$ v. Scott, 13 How. 268; and many subsequent cases. Where, under the constitution and laws of the United States, a cir- cuit court of the United States has jurisdiction of a cause in ����