The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

From a late London paper.

LAW INTELLIGENCE
Court of Session, Edinburgh.

The Court of Session lately decided a question between the seamen of Prestonpans of that place, respecting a charitable fund belonging to the seamen. As similar cases may probably have occurred in other sea port towns, of which the trade has decayed, the statement of the decision may be of general importance.

Prestonpans, which is a burgh of barony, was formerly a place of considerable trade. So early as 1624, the ship masters and sailors had raised a fund for the relief of the poor of their body, and their widows and orphans. After the union with England the trade of Prestonpans fell into decay, and ship-masters who used to reside there, left the place. A few of the members who had left the sea, and betaken themselves to other professions, had the influence to procure a regulation to be made, which excluded seamen from admission, unless they happened to be children of former members of the society. They afterwards assumed an arbitrary power of rejecting all candidates for admission, so much that no new member has been received since the year 1762. Thus the incorporation came at last to center in the Messrs. Warroch, who had been admitted members, though neither of them ever were seamen. These gentlemen lent out the funds, amounting to 600l. sterling, in their own names, and the only thing which kept alive the memory of the institution, was the payment to an old widow of a small pension of 10s. per quarter. The fund was thus about to be lost altogether to the public, when some seamen, who had applied for admission, and had been rejected, brought this action before the Court of Session, concluding that Messrs. Warroch should be ordained to admit them members, and account for the funds of the society. These gentlemen opposed this claim, alleging, that this was no more than a private Friendly Society, that they, as the surviving members had an uncontrouled power to reject candidates for admission, without any cause assigned, and were entitled to do with the funds what they thought proper. The Court had no occasion to decide on this argument; for though the original constitution of the society could not be shewn, it was proved to have existed under the name of the "Incorporation of Seamen of Prestonpans," downwards from the year 1624, and to have exercised all the rights of a body corporate during that period. The Court accordingly found it to be an existing Incorporation, and that the funds behoved to be applied to the charitable purposes for which they were contributed; that the pursuers were entitled to be admitted members; and the original laws being now lost, the cause was remitted to the Lord Ordinary, that regulations might be framed suitable to this incorporation, in the present circumstances of the trade of Prestonpans. The Court found Messrs. Warroch were not entitled to charge any part of their own expences against the funds of the incorporation, but that the pursuers were entitled to payment of their expences from the funds.