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payment of £45 yearly, out of the rents of Ballygally; and that the woods and timber trees upon the said lands, were of the value of £200. That the lands of Coolisball and Ballyduffultra were of the yearly value of £350, deducting £60 a year rent and quit rent, and that the woods on these lands were, in the year 1769, of the value of £4500. That at the time of making the said will, the lands of Glanbegg and Coolishall were subject to debts and incumbrances, amounting to £5900, and that at the testator's death, there were incumbrances to the amount of £5400 affecting Glanbegg and Coolishall; all which were created by George Jackson. That all the pecuniary legatees named in the will of George Jackson were living at his death, and that Mary Jackson was 60 years of age and upwards, at the time of making his said will. That the testator paid off £500 of the incumbrances, soon after the making his will. That the value of the personal assets of George Jackson, exclusive of his said chattels real, at the time of making his will, and at his death did not exceed £1300. That the amount of his debts, payable out of his personal assets, added to his funeral expences, was £195. That the yearly value of his said chattels real was £30, and that the gross value thereof, at the time of making his will, and at his death, was £240. But what estate in the said several lands and premises, or any of them, Mary Jackson became entitled to under the testator's will, the jurors were ignorant; and therefore found for the plain-[393]-tiff or defendant, as the Court should determine the question of law.

This special verdict was several times argued in the Court of King's Bench in Ireland; and in Easter term 1774, the Court gave judgment in favour of the defendant Rowland Jackson, (now plaintiff in error,) against the opinion of Mr. Justice Robinson, that judgment should be given for the plaintiff in ejectment.

Whereupon, in Michaelmas term following, the plaintiff (now defendant in error) brought his writ of error in the Court of King's Bench in England, to reverse that judgment; and in Trinity term 1775, that Court reversed the judgment of the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, and unanimously decided in favour of the plaintiff in ejectment.

To reverse this latter judgment, a writ of error was brought in parliament; and on behalf of the plaintiff in error, it was said (E. Thurlow, J. Dunning, C. Feare), the subject of it was really of the most interesting and momentous concern to him. The whole of a considerable patrimonial estate which he had enjoyed for several years, under that state of security and confidence in his title, which the concurrent opinions of the most eminent counsel in the two kingdoms in favour of it, coinciding with the opinion of the Court of Chancery in Ireland, and confirmed by two successive solemn adjudications of the Court of King's Bench there, necessarily induced, was now at stake, upon a question well worthy the attention, as well of every testator as of every heir at law in this kingdom; a question, whether certain general indeterminate words, irregularly used in a vague residuary clause, should strip the heir at law of that inheritance which the law gives him, and force it upon a devisee, from whom the testator, in all the preceding parts of his will, had, by the most cautious limitations and restrictions, and in the most guarded and proper terms, expressly withholden it.

This question arose upon the residuary clause in the testator George Jackson's will; which clause, the defendant contended, disinherited the testator's heir at law, whilst the plaintiff insisted, that every word in the clause was sufficiently satisfied without so violent a construction; which, he submitted, was incompatible with the express tenor of the will itself, and contradictory to all the rules of law which govern the construction of wills.

I. It is an established rule of law, upon the strength of which the security of many adjudged titles at this day depends, that an heir at law shall not be disinherited, but by express words, or necessary implication. The residuary clause in this case, contained no express devise of the real estates; the word effects, being properly applicable only to personal estate. All the dictionaries of the English language uniformly concur in explaining it, by the words goods and moveables: the same meaning is constantly annexed to it by our English writers; this is the acceptation it [394] bears in common speech, and we find it used in the same sense in our acts of parliament, and public instruments, and treaties of peace and commerce. The subsequent words, "which I shall die possessed of," supported and fortified this construction, because the express allusion of those words to a future acquisition, was inapplicable to real estates, as none