Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/1108

The appellants being impowered by an act of parliament, 6th Geo. I. to increase their capital stock by taking in by purchase or otherwise, from the several proprietors all the several species of debts due to them from the government, as particularly mentioned in the said act, did, in order thereto, by three several subscriptions, sell very large quantities of their stock: by the last of which subscriptions, commonly called the third subscription, the [501] appellants sold their stock upon the terms following, viz. that every subscriber should pay £1000 for every £100 of the stock he so subscribed for; the same to be paid at ten several payments of £100 each, the first payment of £100 per cent. to be paid down, and the remaining £900 at nine subsequent payments.

This subscription being calculated for the sale of five millions of stock, the appellants came to a resolution of appropriating a certain part thereof to the several Directors of the Company, and some other persons of particular rank and distinction, who were to collect and deliver in to the then treasurer, a list of the names of such persons as were willing to become purchasers on the above-mentioned terms; the subscription being completed, and the lists of subscribers delivered in, the respondent's name appeared in one of those lists as a subscriber for £1000 stock, of the third subscription, and as such, she, on the 21st of June 1720, paid to Mr. John Webster, one of the clerks belonging to the appellants then treasurer or cashier, £1000 as the first payment to be made for the purchase of the said stock.

The subscription consisting of near an hundred thousand different names, delivered in several different lists, and not digested into any method or order, it became absolutely necessary, for the dispatch of such a number of proprietors, first, to reduce the names in each list into alphabetical order, and then to enter all the proprietors' names in one book, whereby each name might, with much greater ease, be referred to; but it so happened, that in transcribing so great a number of names, the name of the respondent in the general alphabet was, by mistake of one of the clerks, made Edward Curzon, and this mistake remaining a long time undiscovered, was carried on through the several extracts taken from the general alphabet, where the first mistake was made.

By the general decrease of public credit, which soon afterwards happened, the appellants stock was greatly abated in value, and therefore it became necessary to reduce the terms of the said third subscription, in ease of the several proprietors thereof; accordingly, in September 1720, the appellants came to a resolution, in a general court, to reduce the terms to £400 per cent. but the stock still abating in value, they, by a subsequent resolution, in a general court, agreed that no more money should be demanded of the respective properietors of the said third subscription, but that they should have stock for the money then paid in, at the rate of £100 stock, with the then Midsummer dividend of £10 per cent. in stock, for every £400 so by them paid in: and these resolutions were afterwards confirmed by parliament.

In pursuance of which last-mentioned resolutions, and in order to give the several proprietors an opportunity of ascertaining their right to the said subscription, and to claim stock arising therefrom, conformable to the resolutions; the appellants caused other books to be made, in an alphabetical manner, of the names of all the proprietors of the said third subscription, with proper columns, distinguishing the sums paid on such subscription, and also the [502] stock arising from, and to be given in lieu of the money so by them paid in, with blank columns for each proprietor to subscribe his name, in testimony of his claiming such subscription, and accepting