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that therefore they ought to be precluded from having the benefit of it now; that there were instances where persons, standing in the same light with the present appellants, had been permitted to have the use and benefit of evidence as newly discovered, although it appeared to have been all along in the custody of the parties themselves; and where its having been so in their custody, was not a sufficient reason from whence to presume that they knew of that evidence, and might have made use of it before. Lastly, that the whole of what the appellants were now contending for was, not a determination of the title to this estate in their favour, but only that the merits of their case, as it stood on the new discovered evidence, might once be, which it had not yet been, submitted to the judgment of the court; and no danger of perjury, or subornation of perjury, could arise from admitting this evidence, as it consisted not of the testimony of witnesses, but only of authentic records and acts of court, or written instruments, deeds and letters, under the hand of old John Norris himself.

On the other side it was contended (D. Ryder, J.  Browne), that, by the established practice of the court, there are but two sorts of bills of review; one founded on supposed error appearing in the decree itself, which was not charged to be the present case the other on new matter. As to this, by the known rule of Lord Bacon, which has been constantly adhered to, no bill of review is to be admitted, [86] unless it contains some new matter which hath arisen in time after the decree, or upon new proof, which could not have been used at the time when the decree passed. The latter part of this rule was what the appellants founded their application upon. Now, in order to entitle themselves upon the foot of new proof, it must appear that this supposed new proof was unknown not only to the appellants, but to their attorney, solicitor, and agents; for notice to them is, by the clear rule of the court, considered as notice to the parties themselves; and that it was also material to the relief prayed. But this was so far from being true, that all the deeds, letters, papers, and writings, now insisted on as new matter, came to the hands of Thomas Martin, one of the executors of Peter Neve, so lately as 1729, when Peter died; and were now produced by him, who was attorney and solicitor for the appellants, both in the ejectments and the bills in Chancery, in 1730 and 1731; and though the fact of his being solicitor was endeavoured to be denied, yet it was fully proved by writings under his own hand, and the affidavits produced by the respondents. As to the bill filed after Norris's purchase, to perpetuate the testimony of the witnesses to the will, a copy of that bill, and of the answer, were actually read for the respondent's father at the trial of the ejectment in 1731, and the clerk in court for the appellants was, in February 1741, served with an order to read them at the hearing of this cause below. That all the facts alledged by the appellants, in their petition for a bill of review, wore stated in their cross bill filed in 1731, and in their answer to the respondent's bill in 1741, and appeared by the records of the court, and were in issue at the hearing. All the material proofs of these facts were known to Oliver and Peter Neve, long before the appellants had, or could set up any claim. And so long ago as 1709, a year after the death of Francis Neve, one of the remainder-men, without issue, Oliver was so well apprised of the right of the respondent's grandfather, that he offered him £3000 to deliver up the blacksmith's conveyance. And soon after Oliver's death, without male issue, his brother Peter, when in possession of the estate, and not likely to have any issue, offered £5000 for the reversion, though he had got a conveyance of it to himself in fee for £10 in May 1688; and which small sum he probably thought it worth while to give for a pretence to embarrass the matter, and dispute the reversion with Norris's family; and, even after this time, Peter made farther overtures, by offering, in 1725, to marry old Norris's daughter with a small fortune, and to deliver mp his claim to the reversion, if they could agree upon terms; but, during all these treaties, no pretence was ever set up that Norris had been guilty of any breach of trust as to the appellants ancestors, or imposition on the heir of old Oliver, or that he was a trustee of this reversion for any of them. That there were but two pieces of evidence mentioned in the appellants petition, which had not before been mentioned in any of the proceedings; one was a letter in April 1679 from old Norris to Francis Neve, the appellant Isabella's grandfather, saying that [87] he would perform the trusts in the testator's will committed to him; which letter must have been in the appellants family from the time of its date; and the other was, that the