Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL Subject_2 SUMMER SESSION.
Date: 5 December 1684
Sir James Cockburn of that Ilk v. His Feuars of Dunse
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Sir James Cockburn of that Ilk, against his Feuars of Dunse, for relieving him of a proportional part of the new cess and taxation imposed by the last Parliament 1681.—By the last clause of the 3d Act thereof, feuars, vassals, tenants, and cottars, are bound to reimburse their superiors and masters, of the quotas therein mentioned.
But the Lords found Sir James could not exact from his feuars and tenants, though never so many, above the half of his own stent; else, in some places, a man might get more than his own part of the cess came to.
The interlocutor was:—The Lords found Sir James, by that Act, could not burden his vassals or tenants with more than the one half of the cess he pays for his own lands: and found, as to such feuars as were inrolled in the valuation-rolls by themselves, that they could relieve him of no part of the taxation, because they paid for their own lands; but, as to such as were not valued, who held some heritage of him in feu, and laboured other men's lands as tenants, that they should pay what the said act imposes on tenants, viz. £4 Scots; and, if they had 110 labouring, then £6 Scots; but if they had only a house, and had no trade at all, then that these should be reputed and cessed as cottars.
