Rt Hon. Dorothy Dowager Countess of Macclesfield (née Nesbitt)

Holder of a mortgage over the Friendship estate on Tobago, which she entered into through the Nesbits of London.

1. Thomas Tipping was a mortgagor of Arnold and Albert Nesbit of London in 1770, pledging an estate in Barbados and an estate in Tobago (both unnamed) as security for £5219 4s 4d at 6 per cent p.a.. In December 1771, by which time his debt was £7284 19s 2d, Tipping agreed to allow the Nesbits to contract with any third party for debt up to £12,000, offering his estate in Tobago as security. The Nesbits had had the Dowager Countess of Macclesfield take on the debt and the security after she paid them the balance owed by Tipping to the Nesbits; the dispute was about the rate of interest (8%) claimed by the Countess as the maximum permissible rate in Tobago (that in Barbados was 6%). Tipping was identifed as resident in Tobago at the outset but in Barbados by 1771.

2. Will of Dorothy, Dowager Countess of Macclesfield [made in 1779] proved 03/09/1779. The will showed her brother and main heir as Charles Nesbitt. She had, she said, bought an annuity of £500 p.a. on her life and that of 'Miss Tuite' from Arnold Nesbitt deceased [she did not mention the security for the annuity, but it was possibly secured on an estate and enslaved people in the West Indies].

1. William Brown, Reports of Cases Argued in the High Court of Chancery...1778-1794 (1819) Vol. II pp. 641-2.

2. PROB 11/1057/8.