The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

THE WILL CAUSF

After the names of the special jury had been called over,
and had taken their seats,
Mr. CRESSWELL proceeded with his opening spech. He
commenced by briefly recapitulating the facts he had laid be-
fore the jury on the previous day. They would recollect that
he concluded his speech by reading to them the last will, and
a codicil to it made by Mr. Heatley in 1829. In a letter writ-
ten by Mrs. Eastwood, about the period of his executing the
first codicil of the will, she declared before God that she con-
sidered her claim just, and that she should think it right to
enforce it. This Mr. Heatley took to be a threat, that she
would endeavour to set aside his will after death, and, accord-
ingly, he took steps to prevent such an event being success-
ful. He therefore wrote to Mrs. Eastwood, on the 12th De-
cember, 1838, in reply to an angry letter from her, express-
ing his determination to pursue steadily that course of con-
duct he had marked out for himself. In answer to this, Mrs.
Eastwood wrote a coaxing letter, which called for another
from the testator dated December 29, 1838, in which he as-
serts his determination to dispose of his property as he should
think fit.- Mr. Cresswell then read the third codicil to the
will, dated the 3d June, 1826. In this codicil he bequeathes
more property to his nieces, and adds a condition at the end
of it, that unless they confirmed the bequests to Mr. Sher-
burne they were to be deprived of all benefit under the will.
He knew they entertained a wish to set aside the will, should
the property be left to any one but themselves, and therefore
he requires them to grant a conveyance of the property given
to his friend, Mr..Sherburne, under the will, and in order
that they might not do it under the influence of irritated feel-
ings, he very considerately allowed them twelve months to
consider of it. They had lost no time in contesting the va-
lidity of the will; but had brought that case before the jury,
and he trusted that when the jury had returned their verdict,
those nieces would then be able to confirm the will of the tes-
tator, for he felt convinced that verdict would be against
them. Under the will they would hold freehold property
worth between £7OO and £BOO a-year, at thirty years' pur-
chase, besides Brindle Lodge, whilst Mr. Sherburne bad pro-
perty worth about £460 a-year, which, consisting chiefly of
cottages, was not worth more than twenty years' purchase.
That was Mr. Heatley's last will, made after Mr. Sherburne
returned to this country, and it gave the nieces considerably
more property than they would have had under the will made
during the absence of the defendart. Mr. Heatley died in
the year 1840, and dining that year, and previously, the East-
wood family were constantly at Brindle Lodge, sometimes
for a week and sometimes for a fortnight together ; none
more competent than they, therefore, to judge of his ability
to make a will, and, had he then been under the control of
others, to rescue him from that thraldom. Mr. Cresswell
then read a complimentary letter from Mr. Heatley to Mr.
Eastwood, dated November 22, 1836.
. The Foreman of the Jury inquired if those letters had the
same defect in spelling as had been noticed in the former cor-
respondence.
Mr. CRESSWELL said some of the letters mere better in
respect to orthography than others.

Sir W. Pot LETr..—ZThere is one particular correspondence
much better spelt than any other.
Mr. CRESSWELL now understood his learned friend's
speech. It would be said they had been written for him, but
be (Mr. Cresswell) was sure the jury would be of opinion
that the whole of the correspondence was a genuine one, and
that the nieces themselves were treating it as such. He then
read a series of letters from the testator to Mrs. Eastwood in
the most friendly terms, frequently inviting them to visit him,
and from which it appeared that the family had occasionally
visited him, and he them. This correspondence covered a
period from Dec. 1836, to the same month in 1838. The
next were two letters, addressed to Miss C. Eastwood whilst
at a nunnery at Boulogne-sur-Mev. After reading them the
learned counsel proceeded to lay before the jury a series ad-
dressed to the defendant in the cause, commencing in 1833,
and extending to within a month or two of his death. In
these letters the testator appears to have frequently con.
suited the rev. gentleman as to his domestic circumstances,
that he had in more than one instance written to him for
drafts of answers to letters he had received. On this Mr.
Cresswell observed that the jury would find he had written
all letters of business himself, but with regard to compli-
mentary he had asked for assistance in inditing. After read-
ing the letters, Mr. Cresswell felt assured that they must re-
move all doubt, had any existed before, as to whether he was
acting and the influence of Mr. Sherburne. From those
letters he was found treating the defendant as one gentleman
would another, and so far from his being frequently at Brin-
dle Lodge, Mr. Heatley complained of his absence on many
occasions. He had next to introduce Mr. Heatley to them
as a man of business. In 1817 he joined a Mr. Heyes in the
Manchester trade, and carried on an extensive traffic for ten
years, until the year 1827. He then left the business entirely
to Mr. Heyes, taking his bond for £22,000, the value of the
stock. Mr. Heyes subsequently removed to London, where
he entered into the stationery business, and joined Mr. Perry,
a gentleman much celebrated as the manufacturer of steel
pens and inkstands. Mr. Heyes would be called before
them, and he would prove that Mr. Heatley was a most ex-
cellent man of business, and quite competent to manage his
affairs. The books of the concern had not been found. When
Mr. Heatley retired they were given up to him, and the pro-
bability was that he had destroyed them. Mr. Cresswell then
read a number of letters to Mr* Heyes, from 1827 to June,
1840, near the period of his death, by which he acknow-
ledged the receipt of various sums of money on account
of the bond, for principal and interest, amounting to upwards
of 416,000. It appeared also that the various sums on ac-
count of the bond had been regularly endorsed on the back
of that document. Mr. Cresswell then said he should call
before them Mr. Tebay, a land-agent to several gentlemen in
the neighbourhood of Preston. That gentleman had known
him for 35 years, and he would tell them he seldom met with
a gentleman more completely competent to manage his own
affairs. The learned gentleman next produced his books,
from which it appeared that they were kept with great regu-
larity down to the year 1838, when his health began to fail.
He was also regular in auditing his own accounts, and Mr.
Tebay had to produce them for his inspection ; nay, shortly
before his death Mr. Tebay was ordered to prepare his ac-
counts for an audit, the infirm state of his (Heatley's) health
having prevented his doing that for the last year or two ; but
he died before it was completed. After describing the way
in which the will had been executed and attested, as is de-
tailed in the evidence, the learned gentleman concluded by
observing that he left the question with confidence in the
hands of the jury. He invited the utmost scrutiny and in-
vestigation for the defendant* The property was of very little
importance to him in comparison with his character. That
character was to him of the utmost importance, and,, there-
fore, IA WAS ammo it should be set right with the public,