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peat the appellant's complaint for so enormous a procedure, Magill [30] preferred a petition to the Lord Chancellor, without notice, praying an attachment against the said Newcomen Edgworth, for acting as seneschal of the manor, and granting replevins after the injunction was served; and on the 19th of October 1759, without any attendance being ordered on this petition, he obtained an order, according to the prayer thereof, unless cause should be shewn to the contrary on the 1st day of the then next term; and it was inserted in the order, that the then defendants should stop all proceedings in the mean time; whereby Magill had an opportunity in the interim of compelling the tenants, by vexatious and repeated distresses, to pay him their rents; which he accordingly received, the appellant's seneschal being tied up by the order from granting then replevins.

The appellant's counsel, on the 21st of November 1759, shewed cause on behalf of the said Newcomen, why he should not be attached, and at the same time moved on notice and full affidavits, for an attachment against Magill for his proceedings, on which the court was pleased to propose that both parties should withdraw their complaint; but the appellant's counsel having refused so to do, and insisted that Newcomen had a right to exercise the said office, and had committed no fault, and that Magill had been the aggressor, the court ordered an attachment against Newcomen, and also granted an attachment against Magill; but ordered that the attachments should not issue without further order, so that the appellant had no redress or compensation for the injuries done him, or even a restitution of his possession.

And though Magill was thus in contempt, yet by an order made in the cause, dated the 15th of February 1760, and on his application, the Lord Chancellor was pleased to respite publication to the seal before the then next term, though the same had been by a former order, dated the 18th of December, before respited, contrary to the practice and rules in possessory bills; and the court by the same order, of the 15th of February 1760, allowed Magill liberty to receive the rents of the estate, which were near £1000 2-year, without putting him under security; and by the same order the appellant's seneschal was prohibited from granting replevins to such of the tenants as should require them.

The appellant put in his answer as to the force alledged, and the matters charged in the bill, and as to the respective titles of Robert Edgworth his father, and Packington Edgworth, and of the respondents and of the appellant himself; and having been interrogated, whether Robert Edgworth did not make a will on the 10th of September 1729, in favour of Packington Edgworth, answered, that he the appellant had heard that the said Robert Edgworth did make such will; but that the appellant had also heard and believed, that Robert was compelled and forced to make the same against his inclinations, by Packington's threatening to bring his the said Robert Edgworth's creditors on him, and have him thrown into gaol; and that Robert was so provoked at the [31] treatment he met with, that he forthwith set about preparing another will, and made several drafts of it himself; and on the 24th of the same month made a will, all of his own proper hand-writing, to prevent Packington's coming to the knowledge thereof, whereby Robert revoked the former will, and bequeathed the manor and lands in contest to Mary Edgworth, his youngest daughter; and by a codicil to the said will confirmed the devise to her, if she married with the consent of his executors and trustees, or any two of them, in writing; but that if she married without such consent, or died without issue, Robert by such codicil devised the said lands to his grandson, Robert Gifford, for life, and to his heirs male; and if he died without heirs male, he devised the said lands to Packington, if he reformed his life, otherwise not, with remainder to the testator's own right heirs. The appellant also admitted, that Packington filed a bill against him in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, for recovering the lands, and that verdicts were thereupon given, and a decree obtained in his favour, as was alledged by the respondents; but the appellant insisted that those verdicts were contrary to evidence, and against the positive testimony of several witnesses of great fortune and understanding in business, and of undoubted credit, and procured by illegal, corrupt, and unjust means; and that the same had been confessed since by Packington, in a letter written by him in his last sickness to a sister, in whom he reposed great confidence; in which letter he had also confessed, that he had found articles which had been made on his father's marriage in 1692, among his papers, by which he was only tenant for life of the said estates, which induced