Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
Gilbert More v. Patrick Murray
Date: 25 November 1696
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Philiphaugh reported Gilbert More, writer, against Patrick Murray, collector, upon a decreet of the bailies of Edinburgh, on a bank-bill of £50 sterling, bearing to be such a number;—More Alleging he had the same bill, and lost it, and so Murray must be liable, having uplifted the money: For the nature of these bank-bills is,—whoever presents it, is paid; and they have nothing to discriminate them from one another, but the number they are marked with, and there is not two of them which bear the same number. Murray's reason of suspension and reduction was,—the decreet lacked probation, it not being proven that this was More's numerical bill.
Answered,—The decreet bears an acknowledgment that it was the same bill; and, though he denied it now, because it was not subscribed, yet they offered to fortify and instruct it per membra curiœ; and he did not condescend from whom he got it.
Replied,—These bank notes being invented for dispatch and celerity of trade, they are neither bound to keep an account-book anent them, nor to notice whence they have them; because they pass through twenty hands, as money or any fungible, in which case no man is bound to tell from whom he had them; no more than the other can prove quomodo desiit possidere.
The Lords repelled the reason, and found the letters orderly proceeded, on the presumptive probation contained in the decreet, and that he declined to condescend how he got it.
