COLEGATE D. OWINGS' CASE.

matter which required consideration; and that she had been in
that condition some two or three days previous. About four o'clock
in the afternoon of the 15th, Dr. Marsh visited the plaintiff and
found her apparently asleep, but on being once or twice called by
the defendant, the plaintiff roused up, and gave him her hand. The
Doctor thinks she answered intelligently to all the questions he
asked her. But he declined to answer directly, and say, whether
or not she was then in a sound state of mind; and says, that the
questions he asked her were not of a nature for him to judge of her
sanity. On the next morning, the 16th, Dr. Marsh and Dr. Grif-
fith at nine o'clock, visited the plaintiff, and found her in an apo-
plectic state, entirely insensible and unable to speak or move; and
requiring all the strength of one of them to straighten her arm to
bleed her.(m) After being bled she continued to be perfectly
comotose, or absorbed in a preternatural sleep, or stupor, until day-
break of the 17th, when she awoke; but was still incoherent in her
mind. After which she gradually recovered.

The instrument of writing, which was thus signed on the 15th
of June 1824, had been prepared by Justice Feudal, as he states,
for and at the request of the defendant about six months previous;
but the defendant admits, in her answer, that she had caused it to
be prepared by him in 1822. During the greater part of the inter-
val between the periods of its preparation and execution, the plain-
tiff had enjoyed her usual state of good health. About six months
before this instrument was executed, in a conversation upon the
subject of the provision which the plaintiff had promised, or
intended to make for the defendant, the plaintiff declared to* the
defendant, that she would leave her no more than a life estate in
her property. And the plaintiff often before and after made simi-
lar declarations. The defendant had always continued to reside
with the plaintiff, who had latterly confided the management of her
estate very much or altogether to the defendant, who had always
conducted herself toward the plaintiff as a dutiful daughter; and
the plaintiff had great confidence in the defendant.

Upon the whole then, and after the most careful investigation of
this case, thus far, there appears to be no one ground upon which
this deed can be permitted to stand. It was prepared at the sole
instance of the defendant. It was never at any time submitted to

(m) "A very apoplexy, lethargy, mulled, dea£ sleepy, insensible.**—Coriolanus>
act 4, s. 5,