Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/488

and carried on the undertaking at a great expence, but with so little profit, that in a few years the greatest part of their stock was exhausted.

The appellant, having been recommended to the company, as a person well skilled in works of this nature, and having pointed out to them proper methods of retrieving the ruinous situation of their manufactory, certain articles, bearing date the 25th of September 1696, were entered into between the respondents, on behalf of themselves, and the rest of the company, of the one part, and the appellant of the other part; whereby the appellant was appointed agent, manager, director and overseer of the works and workmen at Esher, during his life, and the respondents covenanted to pay him £78 per ann. and to find him and his family convenient habitation, coals, and beer; and further, that during the time the said works should continue at Esher, or elsewhere, and the appellant should live, they would pay him over and above the £78 per ann. 3s. 6d. for every hundred weight of brass wire that should be made by him, or any other person during his life, by the order, instruction, or appointment of the respondents, or their partners, provided it was equal in goodness to a pattern therein mentioned. And certain stipulations were also made by these articles, for the benefit of the appellant's wife, in case she should happen to survive him.

The appellant accordingly entered into his employment, and conducted the works in so proper and successful a manner, that the price of the brass wire made there, was advanced above £40 per ton.

But in September 1698, some disputes arising between the appellant and the respondent Coggs, the appellant was, by an order in [141] writing, removed from his said service; and in Hilary term 1703, he exhibited his bill in Chancery against Coggs and the two other respondents, for a specific performance of the articles; whereupon the respondents brought a cross bill against the appellant, to be relieved against these articles, on a suggestion of improper conduct and behaviour in him.

Both causes were heard before the Lord Chancellor Cowper, on the 20th of February 1706; when his Lordship declared,

That the plaintiff did not appear to have committed any misdemeanor, or to have misbehaved himself in the management of the works, so as to forfeit the benefit intended him by the articles; but that, on the contrary, it appeared, that the plaintiff was an able and understanding man, in the affairs he undertook for the company's service; and had been very useful to them, in curing the mischiefs which the works lay under, and in improving the same; and that the consideration of the plaintiff's restoring the works in such manner as he had done, was the consideration of the great reward he was to have by the articles; that therefore the plaintiff was well entitled to all the advantages coming to him by the said articles, except the 3s. 6d. payable to him, for every hundred weight of brass wire, made at the mills, which his Lordship conceived was intended as a reward attending the produce of the works, during such time only as the plaintiff supervised the same; and that he was not entitled to it since:

it was therefore decreed, that the master should take an account between the parties, and see what was due to the plaintiff for the 3s. 6d. for every hundred weight of brass wire made at the mills during the time that he supervised the works; that the articles should be performed by the parties thereto for the future; that the plaintiff should repair to the works again, and act according to the articles, if the defendant Coggs should require the same; and that the plaintiff should be paid his salary according to the articles, until the further order of the Court.

The Master, by his report of the 14th of November 1707, certified, that there was then due to the plaintiff for his salary of £78 per ann. and the interest thereof, £781 8s. 10d.; and by another report of the 28th January 1708 he certified, that there was due to the plaintiff, for the 3s. 6d. a hundred of the brass wire made at the works, during the time that he supervised the same, and for coals, small beer, and other perquisites, which he was to be allowed by the articles, £284 11s. 6d. And both these sums, amounting together to £1066 0s. 4d. the defendant Coggs afterwards paid to the plaintiff, in pursuance of the decree; and also the growing payments of his salary of £78 per ann. and 10s. per week, for coals, small beer, and other perquisites, since the date of the Master's last report.

But from so much of the decree as related to the 3s. 6d. per hundred for the