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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0791 and id is 1 raw text is: VEREHELD V. PAUL
ROLLS COURT.
[41] VEREHELD V. PAUL. March 7, 1836.
Plea. Form and Substance.
This was a plea to a bill for redemption.
The bill stated a will made in 1812, whereby the testator, after reciting that he
was seised of certain plantations in the island of St. Kitts, and after giving as therein
mentioned, he gave and devised to his trustees, and the survivor of them, all his
plantations, lands, and hereditaments, negroes and their issue, and all other his real
estate, and the residue of his personal estate, in trust to sell and lay out the monies
to arise by such sale, in trust for the three children, and other the issue of his
daughter, upon certain trusts therein declared, and he appointed the trustees his
executors.
This testator made a codicil, dated October 1818, whereby he appointed three
other persons executors, one of whom was the Defendant. The testator died in
October 1818.
The trustees and executors named in the will did not prove the will, nor did they
in any way act in the execution of the trusts of the will; but the executors named in
the codicil proved the will and codicil in the island.
The infant legatees (who were the Plaintiffs), all attained the age of twenty-one
years.
The bill further stated, that in 1817, the testator borrowed (42] X2000, and that
the Defendants advanced that sum, on the security of a mortgage on the plantation.
The Plaintiffs knew nothing of the mortgage, but depended on the discovery to be
made by the answer of the Defendants.
The bill charged, that by receipt of the rents and profits, soon after the decease of
the mortgagor, the debts had been paid, as it would appear, if the accounts of the
Defendants, in respect of the receipts from the plantation, were produced.
The bill further charged, that the Defendants had no interest in the plantation,
except as mortgagees.
To this bill the Defendants put in a plea, stating a bond by which the testator
became bound to one of the Defendants, and that an action had been brought on the
bond by the obligee, and judgment obtained against the executors named in the
codicil, in the Court of King's Bench of the island of St. Kitts ; and on the 14th
August 1821, execution was levied of the lands and chattels of the testator, in satis-
faction of the debt and the costs of suit. That on the 24th of September 1821, the
plantation was put up for sale, pursuant to the directions of the act made in the island ;
and the Defendants bid at such sale, and became the purchasers of the same. After
the sale, the surplus, after payment of the debt and the costs, was handed over to the
provost marshal, on which occasion he executed a bill of sale of the plantation and
slaves to the Defendant.
The plea averred, that the said levy and sale were made according to the laws of
the said island, under the said judgment, and that, by the bill of sale, all the right,
title, and interest of the testator were, according to law, assigned and vested in the
Defendants.
There was no averment that the lands were in the possession of the executors at
the time of the sale.
There was also an averment according to one of the Defendant's belief, and for
greater certainty he referred to the bill of sale.
The plea also stated, that, soon after the testator's death, the executors named in
the codicil were in possession and in the receipt of the rents and profits, and that the
Defendants entered into possession of the plantation after, and not before, the sale.
The plea was entirely silent as to the mortgage.
The question was, whether such a plea was right in form and substance 7
It was contended, that the Defendants ought to have discovered the mortgage;
and that inasmuch as that they had pleaded the bill of sale in Bar, they ought to have
shewn what was the law of the island; for it was a rule, wherever you referred to a
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DONNELLY 41.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0791&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)