Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.

Stewart and Hamilton
v.
Maxwell

1754, March 2.
Case No. No. 69.

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Sir Archibald Stewart of Castlemilk and Hamilton of Aikenhead complained of admitting Sir John Maxwell of Pollock on the roll in right of the superiorities of several parcels of lands, inter alia on these two grounds: The lands of Meikle Govan belonged to a great many small feuars, and he had right to the superiority of one of them. In 1726 these feuars entered into a contract dividing their valuations according to their real rent expressed in the contract, and they were accordingly so entered by the clerk in the Cess books. At a general meeting in 1748 it was represented to a general meeting of Commissioners that they had no authentic valuation if it was not one in 1722; that the clerk had made out a valuation book as exact as he could; therefore the meeting appointed a committee to examine the book, and after several meetings they made a report, and the meeting approved the book with one amendment; and in it the valuation of Meikle Govan was divided in terms of the contract. The complainer objected that this division was made without any proper authority and without proof; 2dly, That the deceased Sir John Maxwell who had purchased these superiorities in his son's name gave the disponer an obligatory letter that he should redispone them, and offered to prove it by the respondent's oath, who deponed that the first time he heard of such a letter was after he had lodged his claim to be enrolled; that thereon he sent a message to enquire at the disponer whether it was so, who thereupon wrote to the respondent and sent him inclosed his father's letter to be disposed of as he should think fit: Therefore the complainer objected that his right, being no proper wadset, but under an obligation to redispone, gave no title while that letter remained, and if he had no title to be enrolled when he entered his claim, he should not have been enrolled. We unanimously repelled the first objection, because the contract 1726 appeared to have been entered into without any view to elections, and was sufficiently authorized by the general meeting in 1748. The Court also repelled the second objection, in which Drummore, Haining, and I did not vote; and the President thought that though the letter had been yet standing or unretired it would not have been a good objection, and that the act 12 Annæ meant not to alter our law as to qualifications of electors, but to give a new mean of proof, and that a temporary right of property was a good vote though no wadset, and he was told that the letter was only to redispone after ten years.—(N. B. He was told this when at the Bar, being consulted on the complaint, but nothing of it appeared before us.)