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REPORTS OF CASES heard in the House of Lords upon Appeals or Writs of Error, and decided during the Session, 1821. By Richard Bligh, Barrister-at-Law. Vol. III.


ENGLAND.

(Court of Chancery, 1 Meriv. 436.)

SAMUEL WHALLEY, CHARLES HARRISON and ELIZABETH his wife, and CATHERINE GEORGIANA WHALLEY,—Appellants; JOHN WHALLEY and DANIEL WHALLEY,—Respondents [7th Feby. 1821].
[Mews' Dig. vii. 221, 294; ix. 308; xii. 902. Cited in Gibbs v. Guild, 1881, 8 Ch.D. 296, at p. 394; and see notes to Huguenin v. Baseley, 1807, 14 Ves. 273, in 1 Wh. and T. L.C. 7th Ed. 247.]
The purchase of a reversion, by a Nephew from an Uncle of very advanced age, for a price grossly inadequate, the deed of conveyance in the operative part, but not in the recitals, expressing that the grant was made partly in consideration of love and affection, not impeached on the ground of fraud under the circumstances.
A reversion, valued at £6000 and upwards, in consideration of annuities secured to be paid on the lives of two very old persons, and valued at less than £400, is conveyed by a deed executed by an Uncle, aged 80, in favour of a Nephew, who was so described in the deed. There was no recital that blood formed a part of the consideration; but in the operative part of the deed [2] the grant is expressed to be made in consideration "of love and affection," as well as the annuities.
The grantor had previously made a valid will, devising the reversion to his Nephew, the grantee; and after the execution of the will, and before the grant, had sold part of the reversion, and received the price. The attorney (a stranger to both parties) who drew the will upon his own suggestion, but by the instructions of the Uncle, and the deed upon the instruction of both parties, was dead.
The deed was executed in 1773: the grantor died in 1774, leaving an heir, who died in 1791, not having impeached the deed. In 1794 the heir of the heir filed a bill to set aside the deed, on the ground of fraud, which bill was dismissed for want of prosecution.
In 1812 the devisees of that heir filed a new bill for the same purpose.
Held,—That the description of the party as a relation was equivalent to a recital; that the making the will was evidence of the truth of the consideration of love and affection; that the absence of recital did not afford sufficient ground to presume fraud, which being denied by the answer, and not proved in the cause, no issue ought to be directed, as the court of equity had before it sufficient evidence to decide the case; and on these grounds, and under these circumstances, that the conveyance was rightly held valid, and the bill properly

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