240 LINGAN v. HENDERSON.—1 BLAND.

unless the plaintiffs establish their claim, as set forth, they can
have no relief against him to any extent whatever. The defend-
ant Richard Henderson rests his defence upon a plea of the Statute
of Limitations. This defence also goes to the whole. It admits,
that although a contract may have been made as alleged, yet it
has been barred by the lapse of the prescribed length of time; and
therefore, if this plea be properly applicable to the case and true,
the plaintiffs can have no relief against this defendant, Richard
Henderson. But the defendants, Sarah Henderson and Janet L.
Henderson, having failed to answer, the bill may be taken pro
confesso against them, and any relief may be awarded to the plain-
tiff's which can, under their general prayer, be sanctioned by the
nature of their case.

Whence this important question necessarily arises; whether the
Court, in any suit against a plurality of defendants, where any
one of them makes, and sustains such a defence as goes to the
whole, can pass a decree against any other of them, who has made
no such defence, or as against whom the bill might otherwise be
taken pro confesso ?

* Although the pleadings in this Court are much more infor-
255 mal and loose than in Courts of common law, yet they must
be substantially sufficient in this as well as in all other Courts; for
otherwise the tribunal would have no means of ascertaining what
was the real nature of the matter in controversy, nor of applying
to it the rules of law by which it was to be decided. It is not
necessary, that a plaintiff or a defendant should here, as in a
Court of common law. strictly adhere to any prescribed form of
stating his cause of complaint, or ground of defence. Kemp v.
Pryor, 1 Ves. 245. But it is in all cases as indispensably neces-
sary here, as in a Court of common law, that the plaintiff should
set forth fully and substantially a cause of action or ground of
complaint as then existing at the time of the institution of his
suit; with this addition here, that it is in some essential particu-
lar such a case as conies properly within the cognizance of a Court
of equity; for if, on the final hearing, the case should not appear
to be one of that description, the plaintiff can have no relief, and
the bill must be dismissed. Mitf. PL 44, 154. If it appears upon
the face of the bill, that the case is not one of that description,
the defendant should demur; yet if he fails to do so, the Court
can grant no relief, but must order the bill to be dismissed. Bar-
ker v. Dacie, 6 Ves. 686; The King of Spain v. Machado, 4 Russ.
225. Although the case presented may be such an one as, if true,
and the bill had set forth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, would entitle the plaintiff to relief, yet if the defendant
shews, by way of plea or answer, that there are other facts mak-
ing a necessary component part of it, which have not been set
forth, and which give to it an entirely different complexion, the