A new measurement of the branching ratio $\frac{({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}+\ensuremath{\nu})}{({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}+\ensuremath{\nu})}$ has been completed. A double-focussing magnetic spectrometer was used to observe the spectra of electrons emitted in $\ensuremath{\pi}$ decay and in $\ensuremath{\mu}$ decay. The scintillation pulses from the pion and its decay electron were recorded on a travelling-wave oscilloscope. Timing and pulse-height measurements were used to distinguish good events from accidentals. The total number of $\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{-}e$ events recorded in this experiment was 1346, of which 6% were accidentals and 5% were $\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}e$ contamination. The branching ratio obtained from an analysis of the data over the $\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{-}e$ and $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}e$ distributions and corrected to include all decay electrons was (1.21\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.07)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. This is close to the result expected for a universal $V\ensuremath{-}A$ interaction. Kinoshita's calculation, taking into account radiative effects, gave 1.23\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. Our data also gave for the mean life of $\ensuremath{\pi}$ decay ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\pi}}=(25.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.8)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$ second.