John Forbes

Of Aldermanbury, party to the suit of Forbes v Hammond and the litigation surrounding the Jamaica property of the Moffatt family. He was the executor of James Moffatt with Elizabeth Moffatt, probably James Moffatt's widow. The John Forbes of Edinburgh who was in correspondence with the Commissioners of Slave Compensation in 1835 seeking guidance as or for a 'proprietor of a Jamaica estate' was a different man and has not yet been fully traced by LBS.

1. John Forbes and Daniel Gregory of Aldermanbury, trading as B. Burton, Forbes & Gregory, were bankrupt in 1793.

The case of Forbes v. Moffatt is described in Francis Vesey, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery 1789-1817 Vol. 16 pp. 384-394 available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5XEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385&dq=forbes+v.+moffatt&source=bl&ots=9MPhpgENYF&sig=hQG7H5XykF4eqbgI5EwSkxBnpus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7hHKVJnkMcL1ULOMhLAC&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=forbes%20v.%20moffatt&f=false [accessed 29/01/2015] and centres on the mortgages and debts of the brothers Andrew Moffatt (1780), James Moffatt (1790), Aaron Moffatt (1795) and John Moffatt (1807); T71/1602: letter [no. 172] dated 04/02/1835 from John Forbes, 31 Gayfield Sq, Edinburgh, proprietor of an estate in Jamaica, seeking guidance on the process - John Forbes of 31 Garfield Square was shown as a writer (lawyer) in Gray's Annual Directory 1833-34 and his enquiry might have been on behalf of a principal.

1. London Gazette 13511 16 March 1793 p. 227.