286 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1814. 



was bound to presume an inten- 

 tion to complete the imperfect pa- 

 per : and the only question was, 

 whether that presumption was 

 sufficiently repelled in evidence. 

 The stroHfj language of the will, 

 and the deliberation with which it 

 appeared to have been made, were 

 such as to require but slight cir- 

 ' cumstances to do so. The testa- 

 tor was a military man, unac- 

 quainted with the forms of busi- 

 ness, and had been led to believe, 

 from counsel's opinion, that the 

 will would be valid without wit- 

 nesses; he might, therefore, have 

 copied the clause of attestation 

 from some form, without know- 

 ing the legal effect of it; his wife 

 and daughter were amply provid- 

 ed for by his marriage settlement; 

 and this will was, therefore, espe- 

 cially designed to provide for his 

 natural son, in conformity to the 

 regard he was proved invariably to 

 have felt for him. Nothing could 

 be stronger than the terms in 

 which that intention was express- 

 ed in the will ; the deceased was 

 a man of reserved habits, except to 

 his wife, in whom he placed the 

 greatest confidence ; to her he 

 reads his will, declares it to be so, 

 and again deposits it in her pre- 

 sence ; this amounts to a republi- 

 cation of the paper ; and the Court 

 having no doubt, under all the 

 circumstances, of the deceased's 

 intention that it should operate af- 

 t^T his death, felt itself bound to 

 pronounce for its validity as the 

 will of the deceased. 



Doe ex dim. Hicks v. Ring. — In 

 this case the only question was, 

 whether the reversioii of an estate, 

 to which the testator waB- entitled} 

 passed under a devise of " all his 

 effected' to hia> wifK 



Mr. Serjeant Blossett, for the 

 devisee, the lessor of the plaintiff, 

 said, that the will was so short, 

 that little argument as to his in- 

 tention by this word could be ad- 

 duced either way. It had been al- 

 ways held, that words were to be 

 taken in the sense in which the 

 testator employed them through- 

 out the will, however dissimilar 

 that meaning might be from the 

 proper or ordinary sense. Thus in 

 Doe ex dim. Tofield v. Tofield, it 

 East, 246, it was held, that real 

 property might pass under the 

 words " persona/ estates," it being 

 manifest from the whole of the in- 

 strument that such was the devi- 

 sor's intention. In the case before 

 the Court, the duty of the testator 

 required the disinheriting of the 

 heir at law, in favour of a reputed 

 wife and her children : and it was 

 quite certain that he intended to 

 do so ; the only question being, 

 whether that intention was suffi- 

 ciently expressed in the will. He 

 knew that his personal effects were 

 only of the value of 118/. where- 

 as his real were worth 40/. per an- 

 num ; and it was clear he knew 

 that he was entitled to this rever- 

 sionary estate, for an offer was 

 made him to purchase it a little 

 while before his death. He called 

 in four witnesses to attest his will, 

 being one more than the statute 

 requires for the passing of real 

 estate. If the Court were satis- 

 fied that the testator's intention 

 was to pass real property under 

 the word effects, it was insignifi- 

 cant what was the exact meaning 

 of the word; but if the Court 

 were not so satisfied, the' etymo- 

 logical meaning was in the Learn- 

 ed Serjeant's favour, if any thing : 

 in the etymology of the word 

 there was nothing that' implied 



