Opinion of the Court. that any fraud, wrong, or injustice in the premises has been done to the United States; but until an order is made staying the payment of a judgment, the same shall be payable and paid.as now provided by law." In order to give full effect to this statute the Court of Claims must have power to grant a new trial at a term subsequent to that at which the judgment was rendered, for it explicitly provides that it may be exercised at any time. within two years. This section has been before this court in several cases, and in them its scope and effect considered and determined. United States v. Ayres, 9 Wall. 608; United States v. Crusell, 12 Wall. 175; Ex parte Russell, 13 Wall. 664; Ex parte United States, 16 Wall. 699; United States v. Young, 94 U. S. 258; Young v. United States, 95 U. S. 641, 642, 643. That a mandate from this court does not prevent the operation of this statute or take away the power or interfere with the discretion of the Court of Claims to grant a new trial was settled in Ex parte Russell, supra. The testimony presented to the court in support of this motion is not preserved. We must, therefore, assume it to have been sufficient to establish the facts stated in the motion, and the only question for us to consider is as to the power of the court, upon those facts, to order a new trial. Counsel for appellant contend that they disclose nothing but a mere mistake of law, or ignorance of the rules and practice of this court, on the part of the officers of the government, and that under Green v. Elbert, 137 U. S. 615, such matters are insufficient. But we do not so understand the record. No case abides the decision of another case except by agreement of the parties; and so, when it is stated that the defendants understood that the appeal in this was to abide the decision in the Mitchell case, what is meant is that they understood that an agreement to that effect had been made. If such an agreement had actually been made by the parties, and then, in wilful disregard thereof, one party had taken the steps disclosed here of docketing and dismissing the appeal, a court would properly interfere to prevent the successful consummation of such attempted wrong. Instead of charg Opinion of the Court. ing such an agreement, and a deliberate breach thereof by the appellant, all that is claimed by the United States is that there was on their part an understanding that there was such an agreement, and that they acted in reliance upon such an understanding. We are to assume that the testimony showed that there were reasonable grounds for believing in the existence of such an agreement, and for acting in reliance thereupon. The defendants were guilty of no laches or omissions, and the effect upon them is the same as if there had been, in fact, an agreement and a wilful breach. That being so, it would evidently be a wrong, an injustice to the government, not to relieve it from the consequences of such a mistake of fact, and to continue in force a judgment which ought not to have been rendered. We think that the Court of Claims was authorized, upon the facts stated in this motion, to grant a new trial. It becomes, therefore, necessary to consider the facts as disclosed by the findings made upon the second trial and in connection with the various provisions of the statutes. Section 2052 of the Revised Statutes contains this provision: "The President is authorized to appoint from time to time, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the following Indian agents: . Four for the tribes in California, at an annual salary of eighteen hundred dollars each." On February 4, 1876, appellant was commissioned by the President as agent for the Indians of the Tule River Agency in California. On filing his bond he received a letter enclosing his commission, in which it was stated that his "compensation remains at $1500 per annum." On the 5th of March, 1880, he was reappointed, with a commission in like form. Notice of this appointment was sent to him on the 15th of March by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and in the letter was this statement: "The salary of the office is $1000 per annum." The appellant discharged the duties of the office from the time of his appointment, continuously, until September 30, 1882, and received the salary appropriated by Congress therefor, by the several appropriation acts during that time, and his receipts for such compensation contain this Opinion of the Court. recital: "Being in full of our (my) pay for services for the period herein expressed." Neither the appropriation law in force when the Revised Statutes took effect, nor any of those of the nine succeeding years, appropriated a salary of $1800 for the Tule River Agency. Such appropriations were as follows: "1873-74, act of February 14, 1873, (17 Stat. 437, c. 138,) $1500 1874-75, act of June 22, 1874, (18 Stat. 146, c. 389,).. 1500 1875-276, act of March 3, 1875, (18 Stat. 420, c. 132,).. 1500 1876-277, act of August 15, 1876, (19 Stat. 176, c. 289). 1500 1877-'78, act of March 3, 1877, (19 Stat. 271, c. 101,).. 1500 1878-79, act of May 27, 1878, (20 Stat. 63, c. 142,).... 1000 1879-'80, act of February 17, 1879, (20 Stat. 295, c. 87,) 1000 1880-'81, act of May 11, 1880, (21 Stat. 114, c. 85,)... 1000 1881-82, act of March 3, 1881, (21 Stat. 485, c. 137,).. 1000 1882-'83, act of May 17, 1882, (22 Stat. 68, c. 163,)... 1000" Of these ten appropriation acts the first four made appropriations for only three agencies in California, (Hoopa Valley, Round Valley, and Tule River;) the fifth made an appropriation for only two of these agencies, (Round Valley and Tule River) while the last five made appropriations for four agencies, that of Hoopa Valley being restored and the Mission Agency being added, but the salary of the agent at this last point was at first fixed at $3000, and by the act of June 14, 1878, 20 Stat. 115, 119, c. 191, reduced to $1300, at which figure it remained under the other acts. In all these ten acts the appropriations for the pay of the other California agents, as well as the one at Tule River, differ from the figure named in section 2052; in the first five acts the other appropriations being at the same rate as that allowed for Tule River, while in the last five the Round Valley agent is paid $1500, the Mission agent $1300, and the other two $1000. Since this case was commenced we have had before us the following cases in which a claim was made, on behalf of an officer of the United States, of a right to recover more than VOL. CL-38 Opinion of the Court. the amount appropriated by Congress for his compensation by reason of the existence of a statute prescribing a salary. United States v. Fisher, 109 U. S. 143; United States v. Mitchell, 109 U. S. 146; United States v. Langston, 118 U. S. 389; Wallace v. United States, 133 U. S. 180; and Dunwoody v. United States, 143 U. S. 578. In one of these cases, United States v. Langston, we held that the act prescribing the salary controlled; in the others, that the appropriation acts were conclusive as to the amount the officer was entitled to receive. The difference in result does not, however, show a variation in ruling. On the contrary, all the cases have been decided in accordance with the general rule laid down in United States v. Mitchell, supra: "The whole question depends on the intention of Congress as expressed in the statutes." In the Langston case it appeared that the salary of the minister to Hayti was fixed by the Revised Statutes at $7500, and that that sum was annually appropriated until the year 1883. In the statutes of two of those years, to wit, 1879 and 1880, it was expressly provided that the appropriation should be in full for the annual salary, and that all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of the act should be repealed. In the years 1883, 1884, and 1885 there was simply an appropriation of $5000 for the minister to Hayti. The plaintiff held the office from September 28, 1877, until July 24, 1885. Until 1883 he was paid at the rate of $7500 per annum, but for the remaining years he received only the amount of the appropriation, to wit, $5000 per annum. And this court held that there was nothing in the language of these last appropriation acts which could be satisfactorily construed as repealing the express language of the section fixing the salary at $7500 per annum - a salary which had been recognized by Congress for ten years in its appropriations, and by language in some of the acts clearly declaring that to be the salary attached to that office. Repeals by implication are not favored, and it was held that the mere failure to appropriate the full salary was not, in and of itself alone, sufficient to repeal the prior act. And yet the court conceded Opinion of the Court. at the close of the opinion that "the case is not free from difficulty." While not questioning at all the Langston case, we think that it expresses the limit in that direction. In this case there are several considerations which tend to show that appellant's right to compensation was not fixed by $2052, Revised Statutes. In the first place, the agency at Tule River is not specifically named in the section, though doubtless it would come within its description. It had been an agency existing before the Revised Statutes, and never had there been for it any appropriation over $1500. Congress, in the ten appropriation acts passed after the Revised Statutes and before the close of appellant's term of service, did not recognize the salary of $1800 in respect to any one of the agencies in California. It discriminated between them, giving different salaries to different agencies, some of these being in excess of any prescribed by § 2052. The fact of discrimination, and the constant disregard of § 2052 in respect to all agencies, indicates that the matter was present to the consideration of Congress, and that in naming the various amounts during these several years it was fixing the entire compensation which it intended should be given. It was a legislative readjustment of salaries, for it is not to be believed that Congress during all these years was simply appropriating a part of that which it knew was due to its officers. A significant fact is, too, that when it first appropriated for the Mission Agency, on May 27, 1878, it appropriated $3000, but on June 14, 1878, within less than three weeks, it passed an act reducing the salary to $1300. Still more significant is the fact that up to 1878 the appropriation for Indian agents was without individualizing the amounts for the separate agencies. Thus in the act of August 15, 1876, 19 Stat. 176, c. 289, (and the other statutes were similar,) we find the appropriation in these words: "For pay of sixty-eight agents of Indian affairs, at one thousand five hundred dollars each, except the one at Iowa, at five hundred dollars, namely;" while from 1878 onward each agency was named, and the pay attached to that agency separately designated. Thus in the act of May 27, 1878, 20 |