ments or decrees, rendered or to be rendered, in any circuit court, &c., an appeal shall be allowed to the supreme court, &c. It therefore forms no objection to the law, that the cause of action existed antecedent to its passage; so far as it applies to the remedy, and does not affect, the right.
3. But it is objected, in the next place, that this bill of review cannot he sustained under the act of 1830; that it was not filed and prosecuted under limitations and restrictions, and according to the course and practice of a court of chancery in such a proceeding. We think it unnecessary to examine, whether all the technical rules required in the ordinary course of chancery proceedings, on a bill of review, have been pursued in the present case. The act, clearly, does not require it. It authorizes bills of review to be filed on the part of the United States, for the purpose of revising all or any of the decrees of the said court, in cases wherein it shall appear to the said court, or be alleged in such bills of review, that the jurisdiction of the same was assumed, in any case, on any forged warrant, concession, grant, order of survey, or other evidence of title.
If congress had a right to provide a tribunal in which the remedy might be prosecuted, they clearly had a right to prescribe the manner in which it should be pursued. The great and leading object was, to provide for revising the original decree, or granting a new trial. The material allegation required is, that the original decree was founded upon some forged evidence of title; and this is very fully set out in the bill. That it was not the intention of the law, that the court should be confined to the technical rules of a court of chancery, on bills of review, is evident from the provision in the last clause of the first section of the act, which directs the court to proceed on such bills of review, by such rules of practice and regulations as they may adopt, for the execution of the powers vested or confirmed in them by the act.
4. The next inquiry is, whether the appellant, Stewart, has acquired a right to the land, by reason of his standing in the character of a bonâ fide purchaser. The record contains an admission on the part of the United States, that he purchased the claims of John J. Bowie, by deed, for a valuable considera-
