Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/658

646 were as nearly related to the intestate as himself. He had himself been to Ireland on a visit in 1851 or 1852, and quite a number of the witnesses examined under the Irish commission say they then saw and talked with him. These were persons' familiar with the family history of the intestate, and of the complainants' relationship to him. It appears further that he could not possibly have been ignorant of the existence of the children of his brother Edward, who were ail living in Pittsburgh; and upon them coming forward and making claim, their rights were at once recognized without opposition from him. The falsity of his affidavit with regard to his own immediate family and relatives, swearing as he did to the death or non-existence of persons he well knew, and had no reason to suppose to be dead, lead to the conclusion, when considered in connection with his opportunities of knowledge, that when he undertook to swear that the intestate never had had a brother, and never had but one sister, and that she had died unmarried, he either swore to matters of which he had no knowledge or information whatever, or, as seems more probable, he was suppressing information which he had or could easily have obtained, and that he did so to deceive the probate court and procure the distribution in his favor.

The fact that Edward Sullivan, the intestate, was living at Pittsburgh, in America, and that he was a wealthy man, was known to persons with whom the affiant talked during his visit to Ireland in 1851 or 1852, and they knew that he came from the same city in the United States in which the intestate resided, and they knew of the existence of the complainants, and of their relationship to the intestate, and it is highly improbable that he could, after talking with them, have remained ignorant of the existence of the complainants. Another circumstance which throws light on his attitude towards this large estate, and his want of confidence in his claim to share in it, is the fact that it appears that he had made a contract with the attorneys who represented him in the distribution by which they were to receive one-half of all they obtained for him.