Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 15.djvu/276

 244 FORTIETH CONGRESS. Sus. H. Ch. 276. 1868. •>f_¤¤iz¤r¤ ¤¤d•r rcctiouary districts within the United States," that the remedy given in Q:‘gj;Q,j‘Qgf;’:d cases of seizure made under said act, by preferring claim in the court of claims, should be exclusive, precluding the owner of any property taken by agents of the Treasury Department as abandoned or captured property in virtue or under color of said act from suit at common law, or any other mode of redress whatever, before any court or tribunal other than said Provisionu court of claims; and in all cases in which suits of trespass, replcviu, deg’1:;*;*;"t‘;';‘Q,°€b° tinue, or any other form of action may haye been brought and are now m of 186*, ,,,,_ pending, or shall hereafter be brought against any person for or on account 226-  of private property taken by such person as an officer or agent of the v°L ““‘ P' °"' United States, in virtue or under color of the act aforesaid, or the act ap. proved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, entitled "An act in addition to the several acts concerning commercial intercourse between loyal and insurrectionary States, and to provide for the collection of captured and abandoned property, and the prevention of frauds in States declared in insurrection/’ the defendant may and shall plead or allege in bar thereof that such act was done or omitted to be done by him as an officer or agent of the United States in the administration of one of the acts of Congress aforesaid, or in virtue or under color thereof, and such plea or allegation, if the fact be sustained by the proof; shall be, and shall be deemedand adjudged in law to be, a complete and conclusive bar to any pmvimuh, such suit or action: Provided, however, That no judgment, recovered in ppymené: byth} accordance with this act, shall be paid by the United States, unless the juzxangugdz amount received by the defendant as the proceeds of the transaction which this act. was the foundation of the suit shall have been paid into the treasury, except upon an appropriation duly made therefor after a full examination of the claim upon its merits. Approved, July 27, 1868.