Improbation of a bond sustained by inspection of the writing, and no witnesses answering the designation of those inserted in it being found, the bond having been kept up for twenty years.
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William Anderson having pursued an improbation of a bond alleged granted by him to George Johnston, and failing of him by decease to Agnes Johnston his daughter, the pursuer insisted in the indirect manner; whereupon the Lords, having advised the improbation, found that the bond bearing date in anno 1649, and nothing done thereupon, till of late after Mr George Johnston the pretended creditor's death, and that by ocular inspection, the body of the bond, the pursuer's pretended subscription, and one of the witnesses, were the same hand-writ; and that by several testimonies and testificates, it did appear, that there could be no such persons, as the writer and witnesses in the bond, found to have been existent, or to have been servants then to the persons to whom they are designed to be servants;
The Lords thereupon declared the bond to make no faith; but if the defender would astruct the bond, by proving the cause thereof, which was expressed to be a debt due after count and reckoning or would instruct that there were such witnesses as are here designed, who could write, the Lords would receive the same, albeit the same was not proponed, or admitted the time of litescontestation: But the Lords did not refer the matter to the Justices, not having found who was the forger, and the bond being pretended to be granted to the pursuer's father, who had a probable ground of ignorance for making use of the same.
