| Description | Henry Morgan had made a definite bequest to his nephew William Evans to pay all his just debts (by mortgages, bonds, and the like) that were owing at Henry Morgan's death (1780), besides a further legacy o £200. Owen Davies, again, had left £450 to his daughter Jane and her son, which was the exact sum William Evans owed on a mortgage just when Owen Davies was drawing up his will. Poole was the executor of Henry Morgan's will and had already paid William Evans's debts, which would have astounded Henry Morgan were he alive, amounting as they did to £900. But was Poole to look upon the £450 as a debt due on William Evans at Henry Morgan's death, and so payable by him as executor? Or did Owen Davies mean to pay it? He decided to refer these questions to the adjudication of counsel, John Lloyd of Lincoln's Inn, whose answer is dated 4 January 1788. He came down against Poole on almost every point: he deemed the £450 to be due at Henry Morgan's death in 1780 (as indeed it was, a mortgage contracted in 1764, HENB/314); whatever about the coincidence between the £450 mortgage and the sum mentioned in Owen Davies's will, the will itself says nothing about it, and the legacy must be looked upon as a general one, coming out of Owen Davies's general estate; the £200 also must be paid to Jane Evans the widow (William Evans having died intestate before 1788). |