Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/603
month of July, came to the appellant's house and proposed to take the said lands by lease; whereupon, the appellant [309] told the respondent that the assizes of Cork were fixed for August following, and that he would then meet the respondent at Cork and treat with him about setting the said lands. And accordingly, at the said assizes the respondent came to the appellant, and offered to give him £250 per ann. rent for the said lands, which the appellant rejected, and then proposed to the respondent to set them by the acre, which he absolutely refused, insisting not to take them by the acre, but at a rent in gross. And having soon after proposed to give £260 a year for the same, and the appellant being much solicited by the Dean and Mr. John Meade, on the respondent's behalf, at last agreed to set the said lands to the respondent for forty-one years, to commence from the 25th of March 1740, at the yearly rent of £260. And upon the appellant's so agreeing to the respondent's proposal, the respondent insisted, that a lease or articles should be immediately drawn and executed, in pursuance of such agreement; but the appellant, being then in a great hurry of business, desired, that as the lease was not to commence till upwards of six months after, the execution of it, or the article might be postponed to some more proper opportunity, when it might be done with more deliberation; and the appellant assured the respondent that he would perform the said agreement. But the respondent not being satisfied with such assurance, and being very importunate to have something in writing under the appellant's hand, to shew for his bargain before he went home, instructions were given by the appellant and respondent to the said John Meade, to prepare a draft of a lease or articles pursuant to the said agreement. And he having prepared such draft, the same was delivered to the respondent, who immediately procured it to be engrossed; and a blank being left in the draft and engrossment for the number of acres, the respondent proposed that the same should be filled up with one thousand, to which the appellant made answer, the lands did not contain so many acres; but that he might put down what number of acres he pleased, for that he the appellant would not warrant the number of acres from 100 to 1000; and that whatever number should be mentioned, the words more or less should follow, for that he had not set the lands by the acre, but in gross: whereupon it was agreed, that the said blank should be filled up with the words about nine hundred acres, be the same more or less (the appellant telling the respondent he could not be certain as to the number of acres, not having his map about him); and the blank being so filled up, the indenture, purporting to be articles of agreement, or a demise of the premises for forty-one years, to commence from the 25th of March 1740, at the yearly rent of £260, was duly executed by the appellant and respondent on the 21st of August 1739.
The respondent, on the 25th of March 1740, being the day of the commencement of the term, entered upon the premises, and continued in possession and received the profits thereof; and half a year's rent having afterwards become due and being in arrear, the appellant distrained for the same.
[310] Whereupon, on the 19th of January 1740, (a year and five months after the perfection of the articles, and ten months after his actual entry on and enjoyment of the lands,) the respondent exhibited his bill in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, against the appellant, and against the said Dean Meade and John Meade, and thereby suggested, that he had applied to the said Dean Meade and John Meade for a lease of the said lands, and was informed by them that they contained 960 or 970 acres; and that although the appellant had a map of the premises, whereby he knew the same contained less than 960 acres, yet that he did not contradict them, but assented to and affirmed the said representation, in order to deceive the respondent that although he was well acquainted with the quality, yet he was ignorant of the quantity of the said lands, and took the said lease, upon confidence that the lands contained the number of acres so represented, and that he was defrauded in the agreement, and induced to take the same at a gross rent by such misrepresentation of the appellant, and of the said Dean Meade and John Meade the appellant's agents; and that thirty acres, part of the said lands, had been detained from him by persons claiming a title thereto; and that he had been hindered from the enjoyment of a turf, bog, or common, contiguous to the said lands, by the Lord Viscount Doneraile, who claimed an exclusive right thereto, and withheld 2000 kishes of turf, which had been cut and saved by the respondent on the said bog: and therefore prayed an injunction to stay the appellant's proceedings at law on account of the
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