Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/583

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MABSHALL V. BIQLEB. 569 �by it -was merely a payment in advance, by means of notes, of the freight stipulated for in the charter-party, and that the •words "in full compensation," used in the instrument, have no greater effect than such words in a receipt for money due under a contract ; that there was no purpose to depart, as to the amount of freight, from the terms of the charter- party, but on the eontrary to adhere tothose terms and settle on the basis of them ; that it was an agreement, not as to the terms of the contract for the u^e of the ship, but only as to the mode of paying the amount due or to become due under the contract for the use of the ship, whioh, in ail other re- spects, including the rate of freight, was adopted and con- tinued in force by the express reference thereto in the bill of lading, whieh is to be regarded as part of the same trans- action. The adjustment of interest to conform to the pay- ments to be made to the actual payment required by the charter-party, and to make them exactly equivalent to it, strongly shows the same purpose. �The fact that Mr. Bigler f urnished the amount of the cargo as the actual or freight measurement, which is proved by Mr. Bigler's own admission, and the fact that. the libellants accepted it upon his statemont, clearly show that both parties acted under the assumption that this amount was what the charter-party called for, and that they both intended, so far as the amount of freight was concerned, to adhere to the charter-party, and understood that they were doing so. The defendants insist still that this amount was the actual freight measurement. The fact being proved that it was some 3,000 cubic feet short of that, they cannot now insist that they shall have the benefit of the mistake which the libellants were led intoby the defendants' own statement of the fact, erroneously, but perhaps innocently, made. If the receipt given had the character of a substantially new agreement imputed to it by the defendants, so that it could not at law be varied by paroi, the case is clearly one in which the libellants are entitled to be relieved from it on the ground of mistake. If, on the one hand, Mr. Bigler's misstatement of the amount was inten- tional, then the libellants are entitled to be relieved ou the ����