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any hand in drawing out this account; nor was it a settled account, but appeared to have been drawn out and written by one of the agents of the Mr. Morgans, by whom it was sent to her Ladyship; and it would be strange indeed, if Lady Rachel, or Mr. and Mrs. Jones were to be bound by such an account so made out; [53] for this extraordinary account made the first half-yearly payment of the annuity after Mr. William Morgan's death to become due on the 16th of January 1764, which vas directly contrary to the settlement, and to all the receiver's accounts. Her ladyship had expressly sworn, that at the time when the said account was so sent to her, she apprehended then (for reasons mentioned in her examination) that the estate was not subject to the arrears due in her son's life time, which was a substantial reason for her not objecting to the account.
In support of the cross-appeal, it was submitted, that the court should have ordered interest to be paid on the arrears of the jointure, not only from January 1776, when Mr. Charles Morgan filed his original bill, but upon each of the payments of the jointure from the times when they respectively became due. It cannot be denied, but courts of equity have, in many cases, allowed interest on the arrears of rent-charges and other annual payments, from the respective times when they became payable. The circumstances favourable to applications for allowance of interest on these cases are, that the annual sum upon which the interest is claimed, is certain and fixed; that it was originally granted for a valuable consideration; that the annuitant has the legal possession of the lands charged with the payment of it; that the right to hold the possession of the land so charged, is unimpeachable at law, and only to be relieved against in equity and that it is not the grantee of the rent-charge, but the owner of the lands charged with the payment of it, who first comes into equity for relief. Each of these circumstances, taken separately, is of weight to induce courts of equity, in these cases, to grant interest. (1 P. Wms. 543. 2 Atk. 211 and 411. 3 Atk. 579. Forrester, 2.) Yet the courts, by no means, require that they should all combine together. In more cases than one of this description, the courts have granted interest, though they have been attended by some only of the above circumstances. But, in the present case, all the above circumstances existed together, and in the highest degree. The sum was a certain and fixed annual sum of 2000l. The settlement was made for the consideration of marriage, and of a portion of 20,000l. By force of the power of entry limited to Lady Rachel, by the settlement of 1723, as soon as the jointure became in arrear, an use sprung from the seisin of the releasees in that settlement, and vested in her Ladyship. It was immediately transferred into possession by the statute, and her Ladyship thereupon had a right to take and hold possession of the lands till the rent-charge was satisfied. Besides, the term of ninety nine years, limited to the trustees by the settlement, gave them a right to the possession of the lands during that term. Both her Ladyship and her trustees brought their ejectments, and obtained the possession of the estate, and were entitled in law to recover the arrears due to her Ladyship, and all the costs, charges, and expences, occasioned by the jointure being suffered to go in arrear. Against this Mr. Charles Morgan was obliged to seek the aid of equity, and it was upon his application that the injunction was granted; now, it is an established maxim, that he who seeks equi-[54]-ty must do equity; and it was submitted, that there is not a single precedent, where the court has ever granted relief to the owner of an estate against a jointress, who proceeded at law for the recovery of a fixed certain sum, on any other terms than those of paying her interest from the respective times, when the arrears became payable. The long and continued irregularity of the payment of the jointure by the owner of the estate, the debtor being agent for the creditor, were farther circumstances to favour Lady Rachel's claim to interest upon her arrears; and it was an additional circumstance in favour of Mr. and Mrs. Jones's claim to it, that the teretenants, by with-holding her Ladyship's jointure, compelled her to sell out her 1650l. Bank stock, which, if the jointure had not been strangely with-held, would have otherwise (it was most highly probable) upon her Ladyship's decease, devolved, with her other personal assets, on Mrs. Jones. On these grounds it was hoped, that it would be thought just that Mr. and Mrs. Jones should be allowed, not only the interest on the 16,824l. 11s. 3d. from January 1776, the time when Mr. Charles Morgan filed his original bill (agreeably to the order of the 4th of August
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