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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 3, Page 248   View pdf image (33K)
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248 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.
to the position of respectability from which he seduced her,
and to suppose that, knowing this, and free frem all restraint,
she selected him as the object of her bounty, ae the person to
whom without consideration she should give the whole of her
estate, which came from her ancestors, and leave herself a
dependent upon his charity, is to suppose that against which
every instinct of nature is at war.
I entertain, therefore, no doubt whatever that Henrietta A.
Bedford executed the deeds in question under the conviction
that she was the lawful wife of Richard B. Mitchell, and apart
from the evidence of Dr. Bedford, I think there is strong
ground for believing that the influence of a husband was
exerted to procure the conveyances from her. The proximity
of the deeds to the marriage, in point of time, is a circum-
stance which cannot be overlooked, and is pregnant with
suspicion. Within less than one month from the nuptials, the
stepdaughter and wife is divested of her whole estate. He
who had been husband to her mother, and to whom she had in
the lifetime of her mother stood in the relation of daughter,
took her to wife, and before the first moon had passed, he
strips her of every atom of property she owned. Over-
looking everything else, there is an unbecoming precipitancy
in the act which throws a flood of light upon the motives of
Mitchell in marrying his stepdaughter. It could not have
been affection; and when we find that instantly, upon being
clothed with the authority of a husband, the deceived woman
conveys to him all her estate, it is most natural to suppose
that the solemnity of a marriage was resorted to as an instru-
ment to procure the conveyance.
Such ia my conclusion, and therefore I say, that unless some
innocent third party be made to suffer wrong from which but
for the conveyance such party would not have been subjected,
the merits of the cause are with the defendants, upon the as-
sumption that the exclusive purpose of the bill is to affect the
property which originally belonged to Henrietta A. Bedford.
To make that property responsible for the debts of Mitchell,
contracted without any reference to it, and when his creditors,

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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 3, Page 248   View pdf image (33K)
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