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operate, when made upon such weighty and interesting considerations as those of blood or marriage.

13. A thirteenth species of conveyance, introduced by this statute, is that of a bargain and sale of lands; which is a kind of real contract, whereby the bargainer for some pecuniary consideration bargains and sells, that is, contracts to convey, the land to the bargainee; and becomes by such bargain, a trustee for, or seized to the use of, the bargainee; and then the statute of uses completes the purchase, or, as it hath been well expressed, the bargain first vests the use, and then the statute vests the possession. But as it was foreseen that conveyances, thus made, would want all those benefits of notoriety, which the old common law assurances were calculated to give; to prevent therefore clandestine conveyances of freeholds, it was enacted in the same session of parliament, by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 16. that such bargains and sales should not enure to pass a freehold, unless the same be made by indenture, and enrolled within six months in one of the courts of Westminster-hall, or with the custos rotulorum of the county. Clandestine bargains and sales of chattel interests, or leases for years, were thought not worth regarding, as such interests were very precarious till about six years before; which also occasioned them to be overlooked in framing the statute of uses: and therefore such bargains and sales are not directed to be enrolled. This omission has given rise to

14. A fourteenth species of conveyance, viz. by lease and release. It is thus contrived: a lease, or rather bargain and sale, upon some pecuniary consideration, for one year, is made by the tenant of the freehold to the lessee or bargainee. Now this, without any enrolment, makes the bargainer stand seized to the use of the bargainee, and vests in the bargainee the use of the term for a year; and then the statute immediately annexes the possession. He therefore being thus in possession, is capable of receiving a release of the freehold and reversion; which we have seen before must be made to a tenant in possession: and, accordingly, the next day, a release is granted to him. This is held to supply the place of livery of seizin; and so a conveyance by lease and release is said to amount to a feoff

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15. To these may be added deeds to lead or declare the uses of other more direct conveyances, as feoffments, fines, and recoveries; of which we shall speak in the next chapter; and,

16. Deeds of revocation of uses; founded in a previous power, reserved at the raising of the uses, to revoke such as were then declared; and to appoint others in their stead, which is incident to the power of revocation. And this may suffice for a specimen of conveyances founded upon the statute of uses and will finish our observations upon such deeds as serve to transfer real property.

Before we conclude, it will not be improper to subjoin a few remarks upon such deeds as are used not to convey, but to charge or incumber lands,

and to discharge them again: of which nature are obligations or bonds, recognizances, and defeasances upon them both.

1. An obligation, or bond, is a deed whereby the obliger obliges himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, to pay a certain sum of money to another at a day appointed. If this be all, the bond is called a single one, simplex obligatio; but there is generally a condition added, that if the obliger does some particular act, the obligation shall be void, or else shall remain in full force: as, payment of rent; performance of covenants in a deed; or repayment of a principal sum of money borrowed of the obligee, with interest, which principal sum is usually one half of the penal sum specified in the bond. In case this condition is not performed, the bond becomes forfeited, or absolute at law, and charges the obliger while living; and after his death the obligation descends upon his heir, who (on defect of personal assets) is bound to discharge it, provided he has real assets by descent as a recompense. So that it may be called, though not a direct, yet a collateral charge upon the lands.

On the forfeiture of a bond, or its becoming single, the whole penalty was formerly recoverable at law but here the courts of equity interposed, and would not permit a man to take more than in conscience he ought; viz. his principal, interest, and expenses, in case the forfeiture accrued by non-payment of money borrowed; the damages sustained, upon non-performance of covenants, and the like.

2. A recognizance is an obligation of record, which a man enters into before some court of record or magistrate duly authorized, with condition to do some particular act: as to appear at the assizes, to keep the peace, to pay a debt, or the like. It is in most respects like another bond: the difference being chiefly this: that the bond is the creation of a fresh debt or obligation de novo, the recognizance is an acknowledgment of a former debt upon record; being allowed a priority in point of payment, and binding the lands of the cognizor, from the time of enrolment on record.

3. A defeasance, on a bond, or recognizance, or judgment recovered, is a condition which, when performed, defeats or undoes it, in the same manner as a defeasance of an estate before-mentioned, It differs only from the common condition of a bond, in that the one is always inserted in the deed or bond itself, the other is made between the same parties by a separate, and frequently a subsequent deed.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF ALIENATION BY MATTER OF RECORD.

ASSURANCES by matter of record are such as do not entirely depend on the act or consent of the parties themselves; but the sanction of a court of record is called in to substantiate, preserve, and be a perpetual testimony of the transfer of property

from one man to another; or of its establishment, when already transferred. Of this nature are, 1. Private acts of parliament. 2. The king's grants. 3. Fines. 4. Common recoveries.

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I. Private acts of parliament are, especially of years, become a very common mode of assurance. For it may sometimes happen, that by the ingenuity of some, and the blunders of other practitioners, an estate is most grievously entangled by a multitude of contingent remainders, resulting trusts, springing uses, executory devises, and the like artificial contrivances; so that it is out of the power of either of the courts of law or equity to relieve the owner. In these, or other cases of the like kind, the transcendent power of parliament is called in, to cut the Gordian knot; and by a particular law, enacted for this very purpose, to unfetter an estate; to give its tenant reasonable powers: or to assure it to a purchaser, against the remote or latent claims of infants or disabled persons, by settling a proper equivalent in proportion to the interest so barred.

II. The king's grants are also matter of public record. These grants, whether of lands, honours, liberties, franchises, or aught besides, are contained in charters, or letters patent, that is, open letters, literæ patentes. Grants or letters patent must first pass by bill: which is prepared by the attorney and solicitor-general, in consequence of a warrant from the crown.

III. We are next to consider a very usual species of assurance, which is also of record; viz. a fine

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