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1796–1799

While working abroad in the service of the East India Company, Lieutenant Duncan Stewart remitted £1000 to Scotland. He assigned a power of attorney to William Stewart and John Taylor, allowing them to manage the money. Lieutenant Stewart directed the men to invest his money in heritable securities and give the interest to certain family members. He died in India, leaving a holographic memorandum of a will that provided for the money in Scotland to be “applied in the manner already directed.” Lieutenant Stewart’s executors initiated a court proceeding to determine who was entitled to the £1000. The court determined that the fund was heritable property that should pass to Lieutenant Stewart’s heir-at-law, his sister Elizabeth Stewart Bowman. Bowman then died, leaving the residue of her estate to her natural son Lieutenant Alexander Graeme. Lieutenant Graeme claimed that he was entitled to the £1000 based on Mrs. Bowman’s will. However, Duncan Stewart, Lieutenant Stewart’s cousin in Jamaica, claimed that he was the Lieutenant’s heir-at-law and should inherit the money because the £1000 was a heritable subject and Bowman never made up a title to it. Case documents include a reproduction of Lieutenant Stewart's detailed memorandum disposing of his personal effects.

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William Morison, The Decisions of the Court of Session (1811), pg. 14407
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