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next of kin; which right she at the Earl's request, and upon further promise to pay the annuities, agreed to renounce to the Countess of Powis; whereby she voluntarily gave up the power of receiving and managing the personal estate of her brother, out of which she might have secured to herself the payment of the annuity left by her father, with all its arrears; and though the Earl procured such administration to be granted to the Countess, without notice to the appellant's agent, and without her actual renunciation, yet it was submitted, that he ought to pay the annuities, and perform the promises made by his agent, by his direction, and with his privity and knowledge. For it is a principal both in law and reason, that the forbearing by agreement to do an act, may raise as strong a consideration for the benefit stipulated in return, as an act done; and as the appellant did all that was required, and was ready to do more, if necessary, the artifice employed to amuse her until administration could be obtained, in her absence out of the kingdom, without any instrument being sent to be executed on her part, ought not to excuse the Earl from the performance of his promise and agreement.

On the other side it was said (J. Willes, J. Madocks), that the marriage of the Earl, the devisee of the estates of the Powis family, with the Countess, who was the heir general of that family in 1751, laid the first solid foundation for regulating the confused state in which the affairs of that family had been left by the two Marquises; which confusion had been in a great measure occasioned by the appellant's unhappy engagements in the Mississippi year, and in the year 1720; but the appellant filing her bill in an adverse way against the respondents, so soon after their marriage, and before any considerable progress could be made towards reducing the family affairs into order, greatly retarded such regulation; and as that bill was afterwards altered, and founded upon promises pretended to be made by the Earl, but denied by his answer, the appellant could not from thence expect that favour from him, which she might otherwise have claimed as a near relation of the family. That as the appellant's claims in this suit rested singly on parol promises, pretended to have been made by the Earl, or his agent, such promises, in order to give them credit, should be supported by the clearest and most indubitable proofs; for evidence of conversation to affect persons with agreements, ought to be received with the greatest caution, because it is so easy to reduce agreements into writing; and the not doing it, affords in all cases an inference, that the parties did not come to any absolute agreement. In the present case, if the promises pretended to have been made by the Earl in 1749, were really made, as importing an agreement to secure so considerable annuities as £400 a-year to [365] the appellant for her life, there was the strongest ground to expect that such an agreement would, between 1749 and 1752, have been reduced into writing; or at least that some endeavours would have been used on the part of the appellant to have it reduced into writing, and to have the annuities secured to her, in case of the Earl's death in her life-time. That these promises were also not founded on any good consideration, so as to make them obligatory on the Earl either in law or equity; they were attempted to be proved by witnesses speaking to conversations, at the distance of thirteen years after they are supposed to have happened, who differed from each other in many particulars, and sometimes from themselves; so that no certainty could be collected, or just ground laid, either in law or equity, to charge the Earl with the performance of them. It was likewise observable on both these promises, that Mr. Pritchard, the witness who proved them, was the person who, as agent to the appellant, caused the original bill to be filed in the year 1752; and yet that bill took no notice of these promises, but was brought for the payment of only one annuity of £200 a-year, out of the assets of the Marquis her father. And with respect to the subsequent transaction, alledged to have been carried on between Mr. Corbyn Morris and Mr. Pritchard, it was so far from being supported by proof, to affect the Earl with any agreement then concluded, that it amounted to no more than evidence of conversations, and a treaty begun between Pritchard and Morris towards an agreement, which, when made, was to be reduced into writing, and executed by the parties themselves. But Mr. Morris had at that time no authority from the Earl to conclude any agreement with Pritchard, and only told him that he was in expectation of having full powers from the Earl to adjust all differences; but his Lordship afterwards refused to give him any such authority.