Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/1400
indispensable relation to the word [383] whereof, and those following it in the latter part of the clause, to complete the sense, and make a description; without the latter words, the sense was manifestly suspended and imperfect; the parties therefore were not at liberty to separate the former from them, and consider the latter only as a farther description of a thing sufficiently ascertained before. The whole clause contained but one description, of which the latter words made an essential part. But nothing, it was presumed, could more decisively fix the construction of the devise in question, than that clause in the will, which immediately followed it; wherein the testator, after he had before said, "I give, devise, etc. unto my wife and her heirs, all the manors, etc. in the county of Hants, for the purchase whereof I have already contracted," added,
or in lieu thereof, the whole money arising from the sale of all my real estates in the county of Lincoln, and such further sum and sums of money, as, together with the money arising from such sale, shall be sufficient to enable my said wife and her heirs to complete the several contracts I have made as aforesaid, for the purchase of the said estate and premises in the county of Hants.
Here was an express devise of estates, for the purchase whereof the testator had already contracted, or in lieu thereof, so much money as would be sufficient to complete the contracts which he had made for the purchase of the said estates; these said estates must therefore necessarily be estates, for the purchase whereof contracts were then subsisting, which had not been completed, but might be so, by the testator's wife or her heirs; for the money requisite to complete such contracts was the express measure of the satisfaction given in lieu of the said estates, and such money was expressly given, to enable the testator's wife or her heirs to complete such contracts. It was there fore manifest, that the compensation for these estates, related and extended only to estates, the purchases whereof remained to be completed, and was totally inapplicable to any other. Besides, the subsequent direction in the will, for Lady Broughton and her heirs, to procure and take conveyances of the same estates, to her and their own use, excluded the idea of any estate which had already been conveyed to the testator himself; any such, estate could never have been the object of this direction, and consequently could not be one of those same estates to which the direction referred. Indeed, it seemed to require some stretch of apprehension, to conceive upon what ground a devise of estates, under the express description of estates for the purchase whereof the testator had already contracted, followed by a gift of so much money as should be necessary to complete the contracts, and to procure and take conveyances of the same estates, could be supposed to extend, or have any kind of relation to an estate, concerning which, no contract of any sort was subsisting, for which no money was due to complete the purchase, and of which no conveyance remained to be procured or taken; but which had been before completely purchased by, and conveyed to the testator himself, and was, at the time of making his will, [384] vested in him, as finally and effectually as any estate ever was or could he vested in any man.
It was however contended on the other side, that the word advowsons, in the plural number, was an indication of the testator's intent to pass more than one advowson; and therefore, as he bad only one advowson in the county of Hants, namely, the advowson of Abbots Ann, besides the advowson of Mottisfont, he must have intended to comprise the advowson of Mottisfont in that devise, there being no other way of satisfying the plural expression so used.
But to this it was answered, that any inference respecting the testator's particular intention of passing more than one advowson, by his using the word advowsons, in the plural number, was entirely precluded by his using the very same plural expression in a few lines afterwards, and in a place where it was evident he could have no particular intent to pass any advowson at all; for in the clause, whereby he devised his estates in the counties of Stafford and Chester, to trustees, etc. he used the word advowsons in the plural number, although it appeared, by the special verdict, that he had no advowson at all in either of those counties; it followed therefore, that he could have no particular intent in this instance, to pass even one advowson, and much less two or more. In both these clauses, the plural expression appears to have been used as a word of course, by the person who penned the will; without any particular design, or regard to the number or plurality of the objects of such expression, but only from a general intention of comprehending all estates, which might answer the several descriptions contained in those respective clauses.
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