Opinion of the Court presentment of the situation dealt with and our views with reference thereto. A protest can not create a right. It may preserve an existing right, although, when opposed by inconsistent action or circumstances, it may not always do that. Its chief function is, under appropriate circumstances, to avoid the effect of apparent acquiescence in the action of another. Let us assume that at the time now in question the plaintiff believed, contrary to the holding of the comptroller, that it was entitled to be paid full tariff rates for the transportation in question. By its protest it indicates knowledge of the fact that the "accounting officers" disclaimed any authority to pay more than for the transportation of troops of the United States that is, more than land-grant rates. It uses the Words "accounting officers," although it was dealing with the presentment of its claims to disbursing officers, and there is a difference. The accounting officers, as the accounting system was then constituted under the Dockery Act, were, so far as its business was concerned, the Auditor for the War Department and the Comptroller of the TreasA disbursing officer was an accountable officer who accounted to the accounting officers for funds advanced to him on accountable warrants for which the vouchers paid by him are his acquittance when his accounts go to the auditor for settlement. ury. An essential difference in practice is found in the fact that a Government creditor could present his claim to an auditor for the full amount claimed to be due, in this case full tariff rates. Upon disallowance by the auditor of any part of an item of a claim-land grant in this instancethe claimant had a right of appeal to the comptroller, but by statute it could not accept the part of a claim allowed by the auditor and have an appeal as to the disallowed part. 28 Stat. 208. It must in case of appeal to the comptroller send in the warrant issued to it for the allowed part of the claim, so that the comptroller might pass upon the whole claim and adjust an over as well as an under payment. Then there was, of course, access to this court, in connection with which it is important to consider that previous action Opinion of the Court either by accounting or disbursing officers is not an essential to the jurisdiction of this court in this class of cases. Quite materially different was the practice when claims were presented to a disbursing officer for payment, and, aside from the presumptions, it is quite out of the question to assume anything else than actual knowledge of disbursing officer's practice and authority on the part of those dealing so frequently with them. The number of claims involved in this case is illustrative of the extensive resort to this method of settlement and necessarily resultant knowledge. A disbursing officer was not permitted to receive a claim, disallow a part, and pay the remainder, as was the auditor. Reasons are too apparent to need amplification. A disbursing officer could only pay a claim when he deemed himself authorized to pay the "amount claimed." This is in line with and explains the suggestion frequently made in this class of cases, and in the instant case, that when claims were sometimes presented to disbursing officers for such transportation at full tariff rates, claimants were informed that they could not be paid as presented; and if it was desired to procure payment at the hands of the disbursing officer, the most expeditious way of realizing on a claim, it was necessary to restate the bill on a basis upon which the disbursing officer was authoried to pay, since, as stated, the disbursing officer could not disallow in part and pay in part as might the auditor, and the necessary restatement of accounts, to procure payment by this method, is the basis. of contention that the claimant is thus under duress. It is perhaps as well here as later to say that with this contention we can not agree, for in point of fact there is to be found in the transaction no element of duress at all, and this seems so apparent that it is hardly worth while to discuss at length what may constitute duress. The disbursing officer in such circumstances does, in effect, say to the claimant, "You must state your claim on the basis upon which I can pay it and none other if you want payment at my hands," but there is no compulsion so to proceed, for other doors are open wherein the claimant may state its Opinion of the Court claim as it sees fit. And if it suggests, as has so often been done, the probable futility of proceeding through the accounting officers, where it could at least be in the position of asserting its full claim no matter what the result, its contention is not aided, for in addition to the right to so assert the claim to the accounting officer there was always access to this court independent of precedent action. And so the stating to a disbursing officer of an account upon the basis required by him if he is to pay it is nothing but a compliance with conditions necessary to procure a settlement by that method, which a claimant must regard as to its advantage, rather than other procedure, and can not be regarded otherwise than as purely voluntary on its part. This condition, however, is of weight in determining the status of a disbursing officer's settlement, a matter of importance in the consideration of the effect, if any, to be given protest indorsed thereon, a procedure which the disbursing officer should not have permitted, since its purpose is to convert a disbursing officer's voucher into something else than that which, under authoritatively established practice, it was intended to be. And that was not a right possessed by a claimant, for it amounted, if it amounted to anything, to a modification of a voucher form prescribed by proper officers under authority of law and therefore as essentially a requisite of a proper account as if prescribed by the law itself. For this form of voucher, used in the instances under consideration, a form for use in claiming for transportation subject to land-grant deduction, provided for the statement in appropriate columns of all the data necessary to the proper determination of the "amount claimed" which was required to be certified by the claimant as correct, contemplated a complete statement of the claim in full, not subject to alteration, and evidencing, when paid, a completed transaction, the voucher having no further function than to procure for the disbursing officer a proper credit for the amount shown thereby to have been claimed by the creditor and paid by the officer. Mistakes of fact occurring therein would no doubt be subject to correction, but with that matter we have nothing to do here. Opinion of the Court It is therefore clearly subversive of the intended character and effect of a settlement made as lawfully prescribed to conclude that such a settlement in all respects intended to be final, and which without the element of finality in the sense of payment in full, did not authorize the payment thereon of appropriated public funds by a disbursing officer, to conclude that a claimant by some process of protest indorsed by it thereon could thus convert such an instrument into a claim for partial payment with reserved right as to further compensation for the same service. The inconsistency of the procedure has heretofore been alluded to. Its attempt to accomplish by this method that which by usual processes could not be accomplished is strongly argumentative. We have seen that the claimant might not, in one of the instances under consideration, have presented to a disbursing officer a claim for full tariff rates, have procured the disbursing officer to disallow a part and to allow and pay a part, making of the transaction a partial settlement. The requirement in such a case that the claim be stated on the basis on which it can be paid in full has also been cited. Yet, the adopted method, if recognized as effective for the intended purpose, does in fact, and that purpose is expressed in the protest, convert the claim into a claim for partial payment and put the disbursing officer in the position of doing the very thing which it is recognized he could not do in regular course. All claims were required to be submitted on approved forms, forms which had back of them the authority of law and the right to prescribe their use for the intended purposes. There were voucher forms for the submission of claims for transportation where full commercial rates were claimed upon the face of which their nature and use was indicated by the words "No land grant involved." They were intended to be and were used where the claimant was asserting a right to compensation at full commercial rates, and they were not used and could not be used to procure a settlement by a disbursing officer in cases where he could or would pay only land-grant rates. If presented to a disbursing officer for payment under such circumstances, and the claimant was not willing to restate its claim on the basis Opinion of the Court on which it could be paid by the disbursing officer, it became his duty to transmit the claim for direct settlement by the auditor without making any payment thereon at all, for he could not on such a voucher pay the amount due at landgrant rates and leave an unpaid balance over. He could not settle in part a disputed claim, but must send it where there was authority so to do. His settlement must be a clean-cut settlement of the whole claim as presented or nothing. If, with full knowledge of all these facts-and knowledge thereof has never been disputed by any railroad company with whose claim we have had to do-a railroad claimant presents its claim on a land-grant voucher at land-grant rates, certified by it to be correct, for the purpose of procuring payment at the hands of a disbursing officer, is it possible that it can of its own motion, by an unauthorized indorsement on an official voucher, convert it into a claim for full commercial rates and make of it in effect just such a claim as the disbursing officer had no authority to settle? Such a right, if a claimant had it, would permit it to subvert the whole prescribed system of settlement and accounting and to make of an official voucher something else than that which by authority of law it is prescribed to be. And, if so, must be held effective for that purpose without presentment, in connection with a claim, to anyone having authority to consider disputed claims, for the vouchers upon which they appeared were defunct as claims when paid by the disbursing officer, could not go to the accounting officers for further allowance thereon as claims, and served only as vouchers to support the disbursing officer's claims in his account current for credits in the amounts thus shown to have been paid by him out of the funds for which he was accountable. And it may be added that no act of a disbursing officer outside of his authority could create any liability against the United States which did not otherwise exist or abrogate any existing right, and payment by him of a voucher bearing such a protest could under no circumstances be construed as a recognition on the part of the United States of a right to make further claim for the same service. He had no such |