Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 Member Of Parliment

Captain Robert Cunningham
v.
-

Date: 9 January 1754
Case No. No. 63.

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Captain Robert Cunningham complained of their refusing to enrol him for his lands of Seabeggs, in respect there was no legal valuation of his lands, at least no legal division; that these lands were in the Exchequer book 1.691 jointly valued with other lands at L.888, and being purchased by the Major, he took a charter to himself in liferent and his eldest son in fee; that in 1739 he renounced his liferent of these lands of Seabeggs; in 1743 complaint was entered against him in terms of the act 16th Geo. II.; but as in 1739 he got two Commissioners to divide the valuation, and to value Seabeggs at L.414, the complaint was passed from and he continued on the roll; in 1745 he purchased other lands to himself, mentioned in No. 61; he conveyed these lands to the claimant his eldest son, who again eonveyed the lands he formerly had to the second son: And the objection to the claimant was, that the division by two Commissioners privately met, and not at a general meeting or one called by the Convener, was not a legal division. Answered, The objection may be good where the original valuation is extant, but here there is none; that a complaint was entered in 1743, but passed from as not founded; that in this country the tenants pay the Cess, whereby the valuation of each farm is known. The Court sustained the objection and dismissed the complaint.