Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL Subject_2 SUMMER SESSION.
James Caithness v. Colonel Borthwick
Date: 8 February 1684
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Mr James Caithness, writer, pursuing Colonel Borthwick, on a debt wherein he was bound with Scott of Ardross, and the Colonel adducing strong presumptions that this was paid with the debtor Ardross's means, and the bond retired with a blank assignation, which falling in Mr James's hands, he had fraudulently filled up his own name therein:
The Lords, on Harcous's report, ex officio, ordained any witnesses the Colonel should condescend on to be examined, what they know of the trust or manner of retiring that debt. For though, of old, it was a decantated maxim, that my written bond cannot be taken from me nisi scripto vel juramento; yet, where there is suspicion of contrivance or fraud, the Lords do, by witnesses, expis, cate the truth; and secret conveyances would never be discovered if the Lords took not this course; and seldom any loses a just cause by this method of procedure.
