APPEAL from the Circurt Court for the District of Columbia. The appellant filed his bill in equity in the court below, stating, that on the 10th day of January 1816, he purchased of the defendants, William Hodgson and Portia, his wife, and John Hopkins and Cornelia, his wife, a tract of land called Archer's Hope, situate in the county of James' City, in the state of Virginia, for the sum of $5000 and gave his bond to the said Hodgson and Hopkins for the payment of the said purchase-money. That, at the time of the purchase, the defendants affirmed to the plaintiff, that they were seised in right of the said Portia and Cornelia, of a good, sure and indefeasible estate of inheritance, in fee-simple, in the said tract of land, and had full power and lawful authority to convey the same, and in consequence of such affirmation, the plaintiff made the purchase, and gave his bond, as aforesaid.
And further stating, that he had since discovered, that the defendants had no title to the said lands, but that the title thereto was either vested in the children of the Countess Barziza, or that the commonwealth of Virginia was entitled to them by escheat. That Colonel Philip Ludwell, a native of the said commonwealth, being seised in fee of the said lands, had two daughters, Hannah and Lucy, born of the same mother, in Virginia. That, some years before the year 1767, he removed with his family, including his said two daughters, to England, where he died, in the year 1767, having, by his last will, devised all his estates to his said two daughters, and appointed as their guardians, Peter Paradise, John Paradise, of the city of London, and William Dampier. That Hannah, one of the said daughters, married William Lee, a native of Virginia, and died, leaving issue, two daughters, the said defendants, Portia Hodgson and Cornelia Hopkins, who are citizens of Virginia, residing in the district of Columbia. That Lucy Ludwell, the other daughter above mentioned, during her infancy, to wit, in May 1769, at the city of London, married the said John Paradise, a British subject, by whom she had issue, a daughter, named Lucy, born in England, about the year 1770. That the said Lucy Paradise, daughter of the said John and Lucy Paradise, on the 4th of April 1787, at the said city of London, married Count Barziza, a Venetian subject, by whom she had issue, a son, named John, born in the city of Venice, on the 10th of August 1796. That the said John Paradise, in the year 1787, came to Virginia, with his wife, and returned with her to England, in 1789, where he died, in 1796, having, by his last will, devised all his personal estate, charged with some pecuniary legacies, to his wife, but making no disposition of his real estate, and leaving no issue, but the Countess Barziza. That the said Countess Barziza died intestate, in Venice, on the 1st of August 1800, leaving her said sons, John and Philip, her only issue; and that neither her sons, nor herself, nor her husband, were ever in the United States. That the said Count Barziza was also dead. That the said Lucy Paradise, after the death of the said John Paradise, her husband, treated the said lands as her own, exercising acts of ownership over the same, and about the year 1805, returned to Virginia, where she died intestate, in 1814, being in possession of said lands at her decease, and leaving no issue but the two sons of Countess Barziza above mentioned, who, at the time of her death, had not become citizens or subjects of any other state or power than Venice and Austria.