Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/949
to that marriage, on which the first £2000 was payable, and as that marriage was to be before twenty-one, so was that on which the second £2000 was payable; but on her coming of age, it was her age, and not her marriage, which entitled her to both. That all the other executors, except the respondent, refused to act, and thereby the condition of marrying with the consent of them was in effect rendered impossible, which ought not to turn to the disad-[264]-vantage of the legatee, since it was to no purpose to attempt to perform a condition, which by the act of the executors and trustees was made impracticable. But if the consent of two of the trustees should be deemed necessary to entitle the appellants to the additional £2000, it was apprehended, that the opinion sent to the appellant Ann by Mr. Oliver, one of the trustees, and the respondent's carrying her to the house of the appellant Henry's father, in the Isle of Wight, where he well know the appellant Henry then was, amounted to a consent on the part of the respondent, and especially since he himself was to take the benefit of the forfeiture. And lastly, that the first £2000 was devised to the appellant Ann at her age of twenty-one, and consequently should carry legal interest from that time; whereas interest was only decreed from her marriage, which was a considerable time afterwards.
On the other side it was said (P. Yorke, T. Lutwyche) to be evident from the will, that the additional £2000 never vested in the appellant Ann, because her right to this sum was to arise upon her performance of a precedent condition, corroborated by the negative words, otherwise not; which condition, against her own conviction of the reasonableness of it, and the repeated cautions of the respondent, she wilfully broke. That this additional sum of £2000, which was the voluntary gift of the testator, was not made payable but upon her marrying with consent; and therefore the interest of the respondent, who was the legatee of the fund out of which this legacy was prima facie payable, ought not to be taken from him and transferred to her. That the testator, in his life-time, expressed his dislike to the match, and in the strongest terms forbid the appellant from complying with it, and he actually had the preventing of so unequal a match in contemplation, at the time of making his will; nor were the circumstances of the appellant Henry in any way mended at the time of the marriage. That the appellant Ann had, at all events, a handsome provision left her at her own disposal, far exceeding what the appellant Henry could reasonably expect; and as she wanted but five months of twenty-one when the testator died, it could not be supposed that the condition was intended to bind for that time, and no longer. That the pretended opinion procured by Mr. Oliver for the appellant Ann, and, at her instance, was on the occasion of her demanding the whole £4000 upon her coming of age, at which time it was insisted, that the appellant Henry had not begun to make his addresses to her; but it was manifest that she well understood that this transaction did not amount to a consent from Mr. Oliver, since she admitted, by her answer to the cross-bill, that when she afterwards intended to marry the appellant Henry, she wrote to Mr. Oliver for his consent, which, for ought she knew, he refused.
On the day fixed for hearing counsel on this appeal, the counsel for the appellants acquainted the House,
that as the parties were nearly related, an accommodation of the matter in dispute had been treated of and compromised, and that bonds for [265] the performance of the agreement between them had been signed and sealed; and that the appellants did submit, if their Lordships so pleased, that the decree might be affirmed.
And the respondent's counsel admitting the matter so to be, the agreement was delivered in and read; and it was thereupon ordered and adjudged, that the appeal should be dismissed, and the decree therein complained of, affirmed. (Jour. vol. 24. p. 252.)
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