next day, sought to remove that apprehension, and said, "Mr. Bulteel is of course perfectly free." The following day Mr. Currey wrote to Lord Abinger as follows.

"30th July.

"Mr. Bulteel met me this morning, according to his appointment, and as Edmund and my self were completely pledged to the contract made with him, I could not refuse to sign the agrec ment, he requiring me to do so in fulfilment of that pledge, but I at the same time told him the contents of your two last letters on the subject. It was impossible for me to act otherwise, after all that has passed between him, Edmund, and my self.

"Yours faithfully, "B. CURREY." The contract, as intimated in the letter of Mr. Currey, was accordingly signed. The transactions were followed by a very voluminous correspondence; Lord Abinger insisting that as trustee he was bound to accept only the highest price which could be had for the estate. Mr. Bulteel insisting upon his purchase-Mr. Benjamin Currey stating his opinion that Mr. Bulteel was entitled to insist upon it-and Sir Edmund Currey rather concurring with Lord Abinger, that the highest price ought to be obtained. The bill was at length filed by Mr. Bulteel for specific performance of the contract of sale.

Sir T. Wilde, Mr. Coleridge, and Mr. Malins appeared for the plaintiff. There was no question that where there were several trustees to a sale, the concurrence of all the trustees was necessary to a binding contract. The argu

ments of the counsel for the plaintiff were directed to support the proposition, that Mr. Benjamin Currey was authorised to act as the agent of his co-trustee, Lord Abinger, so that the latter was bound by the agreement. The letter of Lord Abinger, dated the 23rd of July, was relied upon as conferring this authority, and the reserved bidding of 25,000l., formerly determined upon in the sale by auction, was also adverted to as authorising a sale at that price.

Mr. L. Wigram and Mr. Kenyon, for Sir Edmund Currey, said, that it appeared by his answer, and by the letters in evidence, that it was not the fact that he had stated to Mr. Benjamin Currey that he would answer for Lord Abinger's concurrence in the sale; that, on the contrary, he had said that he could answer for no one but himself. They stated that Sir Edmund Currey was willing to concur in whatever was right, and the party in this suit who should prove to be in the wrong, must pay the costs incurred by Sir Edmund Currey.

The Solicitor-General, Mr. Simpkinson, and Mr. Elmsley, appeared for Lord Abinger.

The Solicitor-General said, that the suit had been instituted without any expectation of obtaining a decree for specific performance; that the object had been to force Lord Abinger into performance of the contract by the threat of a suit, and the insinuation of improper motives of partiality towards his son. There was no pretence for considering the letter of the 23rd of July as an authority to sell to Mr. Bulteel. It merely said that, "considering my conpexion with the proposed buyer, so far as he is concerned, I shall

take no steps to assist him in the purchase." It was no abdication of his trust. He was bound to require the highest price, and to sell to the highest bidder, whoever that person might be. The contemporary letters showed that Mr. Currey did not consider himself the agent of Lord Abinger, and it was not on that foundation that the suit was originally instituted. The contract was repudiated before it was signed on the 30th of July. Mr. Bulteel took the contract of two trustees, knowing the sale was repudiated by the third, and he must be responsible for the costs of the suit, instituted without any foundation.

To-day (March 23rd), Vicechancellor Sir I. Wigram gave judgment—and after having gone through the evidence at great length recapitulated the facts of the case as follows:-"Now the present circumstances were these

The sale of the estate had been the business of all the trustees from 1835 until 1838. Their object had been to obtain the best price; they had declined to fix any price. When they had a bidding from one party, they carried it to other bidders, to see whether, by this species of competition, the price could be improved; and this principle was uniformly acted upon, except in this single instance out of which this litigation arose. Nothing but the consent of all the trustees would justify a departure from this mode of dealing. In this state of things Lord Abinger left Lon don for the circuit, and while upon the circuit he learnt that his son was a bidder for the Bagshot estate, and then he wrote the letter of the 23rd July which was as follows:

"My dear Sir,-Having heard that my son has made some proposal to you and Edmund about the Rapley estate, I write to apprize you that it is exclusively his own affair, and has been his own doing. He will have no assistance from me in the matter, nor shall I take any interest directly or indirectly in it. Indeed I think I ought not to give any opinion on it, and shall decline doing so. I presume his object is in a great measure to gratify Edmund, which I hope he may be able to do without any loss to himself.

"Yours truly, "ABINGER. "I hope to be in town on the 3rd of August."

It was not possible to read that letter in connexion with the circumstances, and to understand it as intended to supersede the arrangement for securing the benefit of competition among private bidders. Whether the letter would have authorised Mr. Currey to sell to Mr. Scarlett, without first giving Lord Abinger the opportunity of putting a veto upon the contract

whether Lord Abinger was right in saying, that the import of the letter with reference to his duty as a trustee left him a veto even upon a contract with Mr. Scarlett-are questions which might admit of argument. But that letter could not be read as giving any authority to sell the estate, even to Mr. Scarlett, except he was the highest bidder, at a price which the other trustees should think sufficient. If that were Lord Abinger's meaning, he left the estate at least the benefit of that protection which competition would insure. If he did not intend so to limit the authority to sell to his son, he must have intended, in favour to his son

alone, to withdraw that protection from the estate which had theretofore been uniformly given. Even with that protection, he (His Honour) inclined strongly to think, that Lord Abinger could not lawfully delegate to his co-trustees an authority to sell the estate to his son, without reserving to himself a veto upon the contract. The letter of the 23rd July could not reasonably be carried beyond this -that if Mr. Scarlett should prove the best bidder for the estate, Lord Abinger would not interfere, or give an opinion whether his bidding should be accepted or not. The letter could not be perverted into an authority to sell to Mr. Scarlett, unless he were the best bidder, nor, as far as language went, could it be construed as an authority to sell to any one, except Mr. Scarlett, upon those terms. Nor could the motive which actuated Lord Abinger in writing that letter apply to any one except his son. It was argued, however, by the plaintiff, that a letter conferring such an authority, not equally applying to other persons, would involve Lord Abinger in the difficulty of having imposed terms upon a sale to others, to which his son was not subjected-a construction incompatible with Lord Abinger's sense of honour. This argument was ingenious rather than sound. The argument, so far as it proceeded upon Lord Abinger's disclaimer of interest, imputed to him motives very different from those by which the court was bound to believe him actuated-namely, motives of duty to his cestui que trusts, and not of interest in favour of his son. And this observation, if well founded, met the whole argument, and if not, the argument was dis placed by the observation, that the

letter of the 23rd of July put Mr. Scarlett and all other bidders on the same footing, at all events to the extent of allowing no one to be the purchaser unless he were the highest bidder. If there were any difference, it would not arise until, by outbidding all others, he had acquired a right to call for the approbation of the trustees. But that state of things never arose; in fact, it was the unfortu nate omission of Mr. Currey and Sir Edmund to offer the estate to Mr. Scarlett, that had given rise to the present question. It was his genuine opinion, that throughout the whole transaction, Mr. Currey had acted a strictly honest part; but he could not avoid thinking that he had, unconsciously to himself, allowed the impressions made upon his mind in the later stages of the case to influence his opinion of the effect of the former transactions. The bill must be dismissed.

WESTERN CIRCUIT.

DEVIZES.
August 19.

ROOKE V. CONWAY.

Mr. Erle and Mr. Barstow conducted the plaintiff's case, and Mr. Crowder and Mr. Butt that of the defendant.

This was an action to recover compensation in damages for a breach of promise of marriage. The plaintiff was the daughter of a tradesman in Salisbury, and, it would seem, was rather an accomplished individual. She was twentyeight years of age. The defendant was a merchant at Poole, the first cousin of the plaintiff, but sixty-eight summers had passed over his head. He was a widower

with a grown-up family. The plaintiff went on a visit to this gay Lothario for eleven months. The young lady became attached to him. They walked out together at five in the morning, and strolled together in the evening. But in this world enjoyment does not last for ever; and they must part. Hard was that parting: and again and again they promised to correspond, and hundreds of letters, in the course of two years, passed between them. Sometimes the gentleman's letters were strictly mercantile, and might be interpreted into the following:-"An arrival of gout expected shortly; pains on the rise, influenza on the decline, and hoary locks as per last." Then he would write three sides of letter paper upon the weather. One, according to her wish, several times expressed, contained a silver lock of his hair; and at length his passion had reached such a height that he became out of his wits, for he discarded prose and became poetical. This correspondence went on for a length of time, until the old man became ill, and it was not expected he would get over it. He, however, did, and this would seem to have given the plaintiff a kind of hint that the devoted of her heart might not recover from a second attack, and therefore her sister interfered, took him to task, and endeavoured, as she stated it, to bring him to the point. This was, however, no easy matter, as the old gentleman seemed averse to marriage. The lady, as was natural, became ill, and was nervous and irritable. The whole family despaired of her being lady of the property in Poole and at Bournemouth, and of the ships at sea, and an action for damages was the result, and to prove

the case the following witnesses were called :

Mrs. Ann Rooke.-I am the mother of the plaintiff. I know the defendant. His mother and my mother were two sisters. I have seven children. The defendant has four children, and lived at Litchit. Mr. Conway is 67. He came to my house in the spring of 1839. He asked leave for the plaintiff to go and see his family in the year 1839. She remained there eleven months. I had no conversation with him on the subject of marriage for two years afterwards. I think it was at the fall of the year 1841, I spoke to him on the subject at my house. I told him I had been informed he was paying his addresses to my daughter. He said there was a correspondence. I told him he ought not to think of such a child as she was to him. She is twentyeight. He said he should like my daughter Amelia very much indeed. We were then interrupted, and nothing more was said.

Maria Louisa Rooke.-I am one of the sisters of Amelia Rooke. I live at Salisbury with my brother, and have been acquainted with Mr. Conway twelve or fourteen years. He came to our house in 1839, and took the plaintiff away with him. She stayed away many months. She returned in June, 1840. Mr. Conway paid her a visit in about a month after her return. He behaved in a very affectionate way to my sister. Our company was of no pleasure to them; we were only with them at meal times. I know the defendant's handwriting. After my sister came back she received letters from him-sometimes two in a day. I have seen my sister open the letters. A lock of his hair was en

closed in one of them. She had it put in a brooch. She had a letter in August, which made her unwell. My brother wrote, and defendant came to Salisbury on a Sunday, the 29th of August, 1841. She was then very poorly indeed. She saw him that evening. I asked him, what induced him to write such a letter and make her so uneasy? He said he was not aware it would make her uneasy. He asked for the letter, to look and see what he had written. He took it, and I never saw it afterwards. He afterwards brought back many letters, and told her sister he could not destroy them, because it hurt his feelings, and he did not like them to remain at home, lest his family should see them and laugh at them. Cross-examined. He was al ways reserved to me, because I was so much opposed to his paying attention to my sister. I did not think it a prudent thing. I was of that opinion all the time. I did not like his manner towards her, and I pointed out to them his age, children, and prospects. This was in August, 1841. I reproached him for not paying me the same attention as he did my sister; and he said, she and I are sweethearts, she is my lambkin. She sometimes read his letters to me, but if there was anything particularly sweet, she did not read it to me. Sometimes I assisted her to indite her letters to him. The letters are out of number. If I walked with him, he never offered me his arm. He was so artful that night, that I could not bring him to the point. My sister was leaning on his shoulder, and he was bathing her head with water. I had all the questions to myself on the Sunday night; I reproached him all the time. He appeared ashamed. I

don't know whether he blushed, for it is difficult to tell when a gentleman blushes. I repeated all in my sister's presence, and before him, because then I thought she had a witness of it. If it had been my own case, I should have written it down and got a witness.

The Judge. Had you any gentleman who offered you his arm at that time? Witness.-Walking sticks are very convenient, but I like them younger.

J. L. Rooke.-I am brother of the plaintiff. I heard a conversation between the last witness and Mr. Conway. We asked what his intentions to my sister were, and he said they were honourable. He said he had been told by his family that it was impossible for a young girl to love an old man, but he was convinced of the contrary. He said it was a sort of infatuation that came over him. We were riding out when he said this, but he added that within six months he would marry for certain.

Evidence was then given that the defendant possessed many houses at Poole and Bournemouth': that he had a vessel on the seas, and was a considerable merchant.

Mr. Crowder made a long address to the jury, contending that the conduct of the defendant was only that which might have been expected from a relation so far advanced in years, and that he never dreamt of marriage; but if the promise was proved, the loss was in truth a profit.

The learned Judge having summed up, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff Damages One Farthing.