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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0816 and id is 1 raw text is: BUSHBY V. ELLIS
important it is that persons should be careful as to whom they intrust the conduct of
their affairs, because the conduct of Mr. Mousley, who was the agent of the Defen-
dant Mr. Shakspeare, binds him in all this matter.
As to the frame and scope of the bill, I shall give the direction, which I invariably
give the Taxing Master, that if he shall find that the bill is too prolix, he may reduce
and moderate the costs of it. I have repeatedly stated my reason for so doing. I
think it, however, impossible to hold that the Plaintiff could safely have filed a simple
bill for specific performance, raising the question of interest and no other, for it might
have been found that a good title was not shewn before the filing of the bill, and the
Plaintiffs would then have had to pay the costs of suit. It would then have been
supposed that the question of interest was the only thing which prevented the com-
pletion of the contract, and that this was the only contest between the parties,
whereas, in the view I take of this case, that was only one of a number of questions
raised by the Defendant, one after another, to delay, for an indefinite period, the
completion of the contract.
The result of my opinion, drawn from the general conduct and dealings between
the parties, and from the whole of the correspondence and communications between
them, is that this suit was occasioned by the conduct of Mr. Mousley, and that unless
that conduct had taken place, the contract would have been completed at a much
earlier period ; consequently, the costs of this suit must be borne by the Defendant.
[279] - BUSIIBY r. ELLIS. July 1, 1853.
A. and B. had charges on a plantation and the slaves. In 1834 an issue was tendered
in a suit between them as to their priority on the slave compensation money. B.
withdrew his claim, and the bill was, on motion, dismissed. Sixteen years after-
wards, when the witnesses were dead, B.'s executors raised the same question of
priority, in regard to the plantation itself. Held, that they were concluded by the
transactions of 1834.
The testator had two estates in Jamaica, called Montpelier and Greencaste. By
his will he charged all his real and personal estate with the payment of his debts, and
he directed that four-sevenths of his debts should be paid out of his Montpelier estate,
and three-sevenths out of his Greencaste estate. And he devised his Montpelier
estate (subject to four-sevenths of his debts) to his son Lord Seaford, and his Green-
caste estate (subject to the payment of three-sevenths of his debts) to his son John
Ellis.
The testator died in 1782. He had granted two life annuities of £200, issuing
out of the Montpelier estate, and after his death the whole of these annuities were
paid by Lord Seaford down to the deaths of the annuitants, in 1820 and 1829
respectively. John Ellis in no way contributed to these payments, though his three-
sevenths amounted to a sum of £6835.
In 1823 John Ellis mortgaged his Greencaste estate to Timperon and Dobinson.
In 1830 Lord Seaford, as he alleged, first became aware of his rights against his
brother's estate, under the will of his father. In 1831 he brought forward this claim
in a suit against his brother John Ellis, and established his right by a decree in this
Court, but the Plaintiffs, the mortgagees, were not parties to this proceeding, and
therefore were not bound by it.
[280] In 1834 the slave compensation money, in respect of the Greencaste estate,
became payable. It was claimed by the mortgagees, but Lord Seaford made a counter
claim for the three-sevenths of the annuities paid by him. A bill was thereupon filed
by the mortgagees against Lord Seaford, who put in his answer, making the same
claim, but he afterwards formally withdrew it, and on motion the bill was, by consent,
dismissed without costs; and the Plaintiffs, in 1837, received the whole compensation
money.
Lord Seaford died in 1845, and by this bill, filed in 1848, the Plaintiff sought to
realize their security and to obtain, as against the executors of Lord Seaford, a
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