Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/579

infancy, he had not the least notice of the articles, the same being industriously concealed from him, so that the said John Jevers passed for the absolute owner of the inheritance, and accordingly took upon himself, from time to time, both to mortgage and sell a considerable part of the premises, to the value of £10,000 and upwards.

[273] The appellant having attained twenty-one, in the year 1718, the said John Jevers his father pretending to be seised in fee of the premises, proposed to the appellant to join with him in making a settlement of what was left undisposed of, being about the clear yearly value of £500, and refusing to make any allowance to the appellant for his maintenance or support, if he should decline joining in such settlement; the appellant, under these circumstances, and having no notice of the articles, was prevailed upon to join in executing certain deeds of lease and release, dated the 3d and 4th of August 1718, whereby the premises were limited, as to part, to the use of the appellant for life, for his support and maintenance; and as to the residue, to the use of the said John Jevers for life; remainder, as to the whole, to trustees for a term of 600 years, in trust to raise £6000 for portions and maintenance for younger children; remainder to the appellant for life, sans waste; remainder to trustees to preserve the contingent remainders; remainder to his first and every other son in tail male; with like remainders to the second and other sons of the said John Jevers, and to their first and other sons in tail male; remainder to the said John Jevers, his heirs and assigns for ever. In this deed was contained a proviso, that it should and might be lawful to and for the said John Jevers, and every of his said sons, when in possession of the premises, by indenture, under their respective hands and seals, testified by three or more credible witnesses, to grant, limit, or appoint any particular parcels of the said lands and premises, as a jointure to any woman or women he or they should thereafter respectively marry, for her or their life or lives, for her or their jointure, so as the premises so to be limited did not exceed £200 per ann. and so as no such jointure should be made dispunishable of waste; and also power to the said John Jevers, by and with the consent and approbation of the appellant, to revoke, annul, and make void the said settlement, or any part thereof, or any of the uses, grants, or limitations thereby made.

Soon after perfecting this settlement, the appellant's father intermarried with the respondent Margaret, who was then a widow with several children, and entitled to no other fortune than two several leasehold farms in the counties of Limerick and Tipperary, subject to considerable reserved yearly rents. But previous to this marriage, John Jevers executed a bond to one John Jephson, in the penalty of £2000, conditioned that he should, after the marriage, settle lands of the value of £200 per ann. upon the respondent Margaret for her life.

The said John Jevers never executed any deed for settling a jointure upon the respondent Margaret, nor was he ever called upon by her, or her trustee, so to do; but upon several occasions after his marriage, he laid out considerable sums of money for her benefit and advantage, and particularly £1300 as a fine paid upon the renewal of one of her said leasehold estates. However, in his last illness, he directed a deed to be prepared and ingrossed, for limiting a particular part of the premises upon her for her jointure; but by some accident, this deed was never executed.

[274] On the 3d of December 1729, John Jevers died; having first made his will, and thereby, amongst other things, bequeathed to value of £800 to the respondent Margaret, and thereof appointed the respondents Blenerhasset and Jevers executors.

Notwithstanding these bequests so made to the respondent Margaret, and of which she immediately possessed herself, together with the several sums before laid out for her benefit, far exceeded the sum of £2000, the penalty of the said bond, and was a consideration more than adequate to any provision which she could claim under it; yet in Easter term 1730, she exhibited her bill in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, against the other respondents and the appellant, praying, either that the executors might, out of the testator's personal estate, pay and satisfy the said £2000 with interest for the same since the testator's decease, or that she might be put in possession of so much of the said settled premises as should appear to be of the value of £200 per ann. and be paid the arrears thereof grown due since the testator's death.