Sir Charles Godolphin to Newton

<1r>

S.^r

I have such due regard for that great character which you have justly obtayned in the world that I will not determine to withdraw my self from that part of a trust wherein I happen to be joyned with you till I have acquainted you with the reasons induceing me to thinke of doeing so. S^r. My late neighbour M^r Thomas Hall haveing by his last will (where in he made you one of his Executors for 3 yeares in trust for his son M^r Francis Hall) given to his said son all his Estate after debts and Legacys payd to be accompted for to him with the improvement thereof at the end of the said 3 yeares, dureing which term he directs his Executors to pay his said son an Annuity of 200^lb a yeare "with a Liberty never y^e less for his Executors, with the consent and approbation of 3 friends named in the will, (whereof I am one) or the survivors or survivour of them, to advance and pay to and for his said son such other sums of money as they shall thinke fitt for his benefit and advancement:" Hereupon a Question arises concerning the extent of this Clause and all the lawyers who yet appeare to have been consulted hereupon agree so farr in opinion that it gives a discretionary latitude for the Executors dureing the 3 yeares to pay safely with the consent and approbation of the friends any part of the Testators Estate that they shall thinke fitt for the benefitt and advancement of the said Francis Hall; The said M^r. Hall being on a treaty of marriage and takeing notice of the Custome in the City of London wherby he being the only child left by his father, a freeman of the said City, became entitled immediatly on his father's death to one third part of his cleare personall Estate, and proposes that, in consideration of his Legall right to such third part if insisted upon his friends approve and the Executors assign a like proportion of his father's Estate to such trustees as he shall name in a setlement on his intended marriage with some small addition for his Equippment, and on such payments to release his Annuity and also the augmentation thereof. <1v> To which proposeall the Executors or at least some of them, object that the will of the Testator is to be their Rule, and that the said will makes no mention of this Custome of the City as to the sons part, but directs them formally to pay him 200^lb a yeare dureing the 3 yeares, The answer to which by such of the Testator's friends as doe not object to M^r. Francis Hall's proposall, is that tho' the will does not mention the sons third part yet it is rightly probable that the Testator was not ignorant of the Custome of the City in that particular any more than in what related to his wifes part wherein he made a speciall Provision for obviating her pretension, in stead whereof he gives a discretio-nary latitude in his Will for advanceing his sons allowance, and what if the Friends & Executors in the exercise of this discretionary power take their measure from the Custome of the City or to the proportion to be advanced pursuant to the {illeg}|Will| without oblieging the heir to goe to Law for his acknowledged Right, where would be the hurt? or the danger? M^r. Francis Hall agreeing on assigning the sum proposed to be vested in Trustees for his marriage setlement. To discharge the estate of his pretension to a 3^d part by the Custome of the City, \and also of his Annuity and the augmentation thereof/ and in consideration of the other 2000^lb he desired to be advanced for his Equipment, he will ask no more of the Executors dureing the residue of the 3 yeares, but will leave it \the Estate/ untouched by him to answer the intention of this father's Will with regard to the Charity under that contingency to which the Testator has subjected it.

But the Executors are advised it seemes by the same Lawyer (who told them just before they would be safe in paying any money to M^r Francis Hall for his benefit and advancem^t with the consent & approbation of the friends named in the will and signifyed under their hands and seales) that it will be safest for them to have the direction of a Court of Equity in this matter and that M^r Francis Hall may exhibit his Will against the Executors and the Company of Goldsmith {sic} to have the sum he proposes payd to him, and Answers being put in the Cause may be immediatly determined, but he does not say in what time precisely a Corporation may be compell'd to put in their answer according to the course of the Court and had quite forgot his opinion of a quarter of an howre before that limiting the remaind^r of a personall Estate is voyd in Law and consequently the allowance proposed for M^r francis Hall being out of his fathers personall Estate only the Goldsmiths' Company can have no concern in it But I can tell him further that by an express Clause in the Will the gift to the Goldsmiths Company was not intended to commence 'till after the death of M^r Francis Hall without issue liveing, for the then in that Clause is emphaticall <2r> and by another express Clause his Will is that the said Company of Goldsmiths or any other person whatsoever shall not give his son any disturbance in Law or Equity for or concerning his Estate or any part thereof on any pretence whatsoever: And when he thus prohibits the Company from troubling his son in any manner voluntarily; did he intend to permitt his Executors to incite them to doe it whether they are willing or not? This method of a Bill in Chancery is what seems to me to supersede the plain direction of M^r Halls will; and some of his Ex-ecutors insisting on it gives the occasion for my troubling you with this Long Letter and annexing to it a Copy of what M^r francis Hall proposes to be advanced for a setlement on his intended marriage as to the quantum, and in a scheme how the assignement may be made safely & easily practicable as to the modus of what he desires, and this with more immediate satisfaction to him self, with least disadvantage to the Estate, with greater ease to the active Executors and more security t the passive, and yet preserving the interest of the Charity designed by the Will under that Contingency to which the Testator has subjected it.

S^r. I beg y^or pardon for running in to this length the trouble whereof I should not have given you but from my being perswaded that M^r Thomas Hall intended by his will that his Friends should be Chancellours with his Executors as to the allowance to be advanced within their 3 yeares of administration to his son, and not that any of them should goe at the charge of his Estate before a master in Chancery to ask what's o'th Clock when the Sun shines on the Dyall, or to ask whether 14 be a 3^d part of 42. for so easy, (you know S^r.) is y^e acco^t of M^r Halls Estate in the present situation of it being comprised in 3 articles only, and the value of all of them known every day on Exchange Alley. And tho' our Testator has exempted his friends from the penalty of loseing their Legacys, which the Executors are lyable to if they refuse or neglect to execute his Will; yet I thinke they will deserve them as litle if they doe not endeavour in whatever may be incumbent on them by the Trust they have in it to see it duly performed: For my own part (and in what I am now goeing to say I speake only for myself) Haveing known the Testator 48 yeares before the date of his will, I doe believe he would as soon have bequathed a Gibbett to me as any other Legacy of Trust in his will if he thought I would consent to involve his Estate unnecessarily in any Law or Chancery/-suit\ <2v> haveing valued his good fortune to me alitle before his death in that he had never any of either sort dureing his whole Life: But the Executors are advised that a Decree of a Court of Equity will be the safest way for them, tho' they are told by the same person at the same time that they may be safe without it; which is as if a man should raise any doubt within himself whether he might walk safely through fleet street because many other Houses in that street were built at the same time and, perhaps, by the same builder, and with like materials and scantlings as those which fell down last week without any warning and tho' 2 or 3 very good Bricklayers should assure him there was no danger for that they had surveyed all the Houses in that street and found none of them in any such tottering condition, But another Bricklayer willing to humour his apprehensions, tells him he could propose a method how he might walk that way more securely by his makeing a Gallery for him through the street and arching it strongly with double Brickwork, and then if any of the Houses should happen to fall as he went by such an arched gallery would secure him from harm: A Bill in chancery would be like such a Gallery as to the charge and tediousness of the work, but is no more necessary for the security of M^r. Halls Executor's in this case than the building such an Arche would be to the City-walker in the other. S^r. I should be very glad you would not insist upon such a Bill as it seemes to be against the exprest will of the Testator in the words I have recited out of it; or if you doe, you will pardon what I have now written concerning it Liberando animam meam I am      S^r.

Yo^r most humble serv^t

C Godolphin

17 Dec^r. 1718

S^r. Isaac Newton.