CONTEE v. DAWSON, 281

to impute to any testator, that he intended to expose the object of
his bounty to be disappointed by accident or caprice; or that he
should seriously have intended to prohibit him from asking the aid
of a court of justice to obtain that which he had actually given him.

In this case I find it impossible to believe, that Ann Russell
really intended to declare, that any one of her descendants, about
whom she has manifested so much impartial solicitude, should for-
feit her legacy by claiming it in any form of suit; and that it
should, in such case, vest in persons toward whom she entertained
no such specially kind and maternal feelings; and who too, by
being nominated as the executors, arbitrators, and legatees over,
were so deeply interested, and had it so much in their power to
provoke a suit so as to produce a forfeiture. I therefore hold, that
this clause of this will, requiring all disputes to be submitted to
arbitration, is to be regarded in no other light than as a strong
admonition or threat intended to preserve harmony among the
various objects of her bounty.

But, apart from these considerations, this clause can have no
direct bearing upon the present controversy. This is not a suit
against the executors of the late Ann Russell, or one in which the
validity and operation of the will is questioned in any way what-
ever; on the contrary, it is founded upon an admission of the will
in all respects, and claims the fulfilment of its provisions of the
trustee to whom, and to a suit of this nature, requiring disputed
matters to be referred to the nominated arbitrators, cannot have
been intended to apply; because the testatrix has distinctly con-
templated the responsibility of the trustees Dawson and Clerk, ac-
cording to a regular judicial proceeding, by her express declara-
tion, that they should only be answerable for gross negligence;
and it is the alleged negligence and mismanagement of the survi-
ving trustee which is the cause of this suit, not any dispute about
the will.

I therefore conceive, that there is no foundation for this first ob-
jection, and that this suit may well be sustained notwithstanding
this clause requiring certain matters therein specified to be referred
to arbitration in case of any dispute.

The next preliminary objection is as to the want of parties. It
is urged, that Ann Russell Contee, the wife of the defendant
Philip A. L. Contee, had a direct interest in this matter; and that
her legal representatives, the bill stating her to be dead, ought to
have been made parties. If the interest of Ann R. Contee in this