364 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

English courts has attempted to hinder or stay any part of the
proceedings in a suit which had been rightly instituted, and was
then progressing in another; nor has it ever been intimated that
either of these courts could call before it the parties to a suit
depending in the other, to give an account of acts done under
the authority of the other.

The rule established by that case, both by the reasoning and
judgment of the Chancellor, and by the Court of Appeals, is
this; that when two courts have concurrent jurisdiction over
the same subject matter, the court in which the suit is first
commenced, is entitled to retain it.

This rule would seem to be vital to the harmonious move-
ment of courts whose powers may be exerted within the same
spheres, and over the same subjects and persons.

This court has no more power to stay the proceedings of the
county courts as courts of equity, than have the latter courts to
prohibit proceedings in this; and if this court should now enter-
tain jurisdiction of the subject matter of the present contro-
versy, and proceed to decree the relief sought by the bill, there
may, and will probably, be two decrees inconsistent with each
other, each affecting the same persons.

The only course of safety, therefore, is, when one court hav-
ing jurisdiction over the subject, has possession of the case, for
all others, with merely co-ordinate powers, to abstain from any
interference.

Any other rule will unavoidably lead to perpetual collision,
and be productive of the most calamitous results.

It is said that the creditors who file this bill were not parties
to the decree in the Frederick court. But the bill filed in that
court was a creditor's bill, and the decree was for the benefit of
all the creditors,, and in the nature of a judgment for all; and
all the creditors are entitled, and have been notified to come in
and prove their debts, according to the course of proceedings
usual in such cases. And as decided by Chancellor Kent in
Thompson vs. Brown, 1 Johns. Ch. Rep., 619, from the date
of such decree against an executor or administrator, and on a
disclosure of assets, an injunction would be granted on motion