Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/223

 LATROBB V. HULBEET. 21 1 �and on the fouTteenth day of June, 1875, a considerable por- tion of the property was sold. On the nineteenth day of June^ 1875, it Beems, from a correspondance between the parties, a negotiation commenced in regard to the release by the corn- plainant of his mortgage upon a part or ail of the premise» mortgaged, upon his receiving a certain portion of his debt^ and notes of the purchasers of the property for the balance, ihe correspondence upon Ihis question embraced several propositions, but iinally ending in an agreement between the parties that complainant, upon the payment to him of $12,- 500 of the principal of his debt and of the interest due,^ would release his mortgage, so far as it related to the prop- erty sold. This agreement was consummated on the first day of August, 1875, when complainant received iwm the executorsthe sumbf $15,000, — $2,500 of whieh was the inter- est due at that date and $12^500 upon the principal debt, — and released the mortgage upon the portion of the property which had been sold, amounting to $18,627.03. Some cor- respondence passed between the parties after this date, but nothing seems to have been done in regard to the balance of the claim until the bringing of this suit. �Upon the filing of the bill the defendants answer, in sub- stance admitting: the execution of the note and mortgage as- alleged in the bill, but alleging that there had been paid upon it up to August 1, 1875, 8 per cent, interest, when by law complainant was erititled to but 6 per cent.; that they are entitled to have the 2 per cent, credited upon the principal, which reduces the amount due complainants to $4,198.58,, with interest from first of August, 1875. �By the statutes of Ohio at the time of the execution of the note and mortgage in this case, to-wit, on the tenth day of April, 1863, 6 per cent, was the legal rate of interest, nor could the parties make a legal contract for interest beyond that rate ; and ail payments of interest made beyond that rate were to be taken as payments made on account of the- principal, and the courts were forbidden to render judgment for a greater sum than the balance due after deducting the- ��� �