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Cronyn; and that the said Stephen Sowton should afterwards receive the rents and profits of the premises, during the joint lives of himself and his intended wife Jane. And the marriage was soon after solemnized.

Andrew Hill, William Cronyn's brother-in-law, in the year 1719, mortgaged a leasehold estate called Salterbridge and Assane, to Hugh Henry, Esq. in trust for Thomas Stepney, Esq. for securing £500 and interest; and William Cronyn and Francis Duggan joined with Hill in executing a bond and warrant of attorney, to confess judgment to Hugh Henry as a collateral security for the same. Thomas Stepney dying, Hugh Henry by deed declared the trust of the £500, and assigned the mortgage and bond, and a judgment entered up thereon by virtue of the said warrant of attorney, unto Charles Stepney, the surviving executor of Thomas Stepney. And Charles Stepney, about October 1732, issued a fieri facias into the county of Waterford, to levy upon the goods of the said Andrew Hill £609 5s. 4d. The sheriff's officer, in collusion with Sowton and Hill, seised and sold by private sale to Sowton, the lease of the estate so mortgaged to Henry in trust for Stepney, for £128 only, and Sowton immediately took possession of the mortgaged [301] premises, and kept the same for six years and upwards; and during all that time received the rents and profits thereof to his own use. But Sowton finding himself obliged to pay the residue of the £500 due to Stepney, notwithstanding the fraudulent purchase obtained by the collusion of the sheriff's officer, he applied to John Fell and Nathaniel France, to lend him £600; and by indenture of mortgage dated the 11th of November 1736, to which William Cronyn's executors were made parties, but refused to execute, Sowton conveyed not only the said leasehold premises of Salterbridge and Assane, but also the lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins, for the remainder of the respective terms therein; and for better securing the repayment of the said £600 and interest to Fell and France, he executed a bond, and a warrant of attorney for confessing a judgment on such bond. Stepney, on the 28th of December 1736, assigned his mortgage to Sowton, who by indenture, dated the 29th of January 1738, sold the residue of the term in Salterbridge and Assane, to Matthew Hales for £730, but did not apply any part thereof to pay off the £600 mortgage to Fell and France; whereupon Fell and France filed their bill of foreclosure in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, against Sowton and Hales; and on the 13th of May 1741, the cause was heard, and the court decreed a foreclosure and sale of Salterbridge and Assane, but refused to make any decree touching the lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins.

Robert Snow, attorney to Fell and France, finding himself disappointed by this decree, in his design of obtaining the lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins, in combination with Sowton and Hales, in October 1742, by virtue of the judgment entered up on the bond given by Sowton to Fell and France, seised the said lands; and the sheriff, by the procurement of Snow, in consideration of £890, sold the same to him for the residue of such term as Sowton had therein; in trust, as to one moiety, for John Keity, and as to the other moiety for himself.

Jane Sowton died on the 19th of October 1743, without ever having had any issue; whereupon William Fowler and Richard Fowler, two of the children of Elinor Fowler, sister of the testator William Cronyn, became entitled, together with the other children of the said Elinor, to the lease of Sleady and Ballykerrins; and in April 1747, they filed their original bill in the Court of Chancery in Ireland, against the appellant Richard Keily, the said Robert Snow, and several others, stating the lease and the several matters aforesaid, and that Snow and John Keily, to the time of his death, and the appellant Richard Keily his executor, had ever since the sale made by the sheriff, under Fell and France's execution, been in possession and received the rents and profits of the said lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins, amounting to the yearly sum of £180 sterling above the reserved rents thereof the bill therefore prayed an account of Cronyn's estate and effects, against Usher and Wigmore his executors, and that Snow and Keily might be decreed to deliver up the lease of the said [302] lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins to them, and the other children of Elinor Fowler, and might account for the rents and profits thereof from the death of Jane Cronyn.

Arthur Usher, one of the executors of William Cronyn, by his answer, admitted the will, and that the testator died possessed of the said lands of Sleady and Ballykerrins, and of a considerable personal estate; that the respondent and his brothers and sister, named in the bill, were the children of Elinor Fowler, the testator's sister, and that probate of the will was granted to him and Wigmore his co-executor; that they did