MORETON v. HARRISON.—1 BLAND. 469

plea, that the cause of action had been more than twelve years
standing grounded on the Act of Assembly; 1715, ch. 23, s. 6; in
any, the most correct form, would avail against a claim of this
kind, does not appear to have been at all considered, or alluded to.
I shall therefore express no opinion upon the subject.

Whereupon it is ordered, that the said pleas be and the same are
hereby overruled: and the defendant is required to make a good
and sufficient answer to the plaintiffs' bill of complaint on or before
the fifteenth day of February next.

The defendant filed his answer within the time prescribed; in
which he admitted the purchase and possession, but relied on the
lapse of time, &c. The plaintiff put in a general replication; and
commissions were issued and testimony taken and returned; after
which, with the leave of the Court, the plaintiff's so amended their
bill as to make the heirs-at-law of the late James Pattison, who at
the time of his death was seized of the whole legal title to the
lands, parties plaintiffs in this suit.

* BLAND, C., 26th August, 1828.—This case standing
ready for hearing, and having been submitted on notes by 497
the respective solicitors, the proceedings were read and con-
sidered.

It appears, that James Pattisou in the year 1787, was seized in
fee of a tract of land called Hunt's Mount, containing one hun-
dred and sixty acres, the one half of which he held as his own,
and the other moiety in trust for the use of John Westeneys; that,
on the 24th of December, 1787, they sold this land to Walter
Harrison, for the sum of four pounds per acre, the one-fourth of
the purchase money to be paid on the first of May, 1789, one other
fourth on the first of September following, and the other two
fourths on the first of September, 1790; the whole to bear interest
from the time Harrisou obtained possession. Other stipulations
are contained in the contract, but they have no material bearing
upon the matters put in issue between the parties to this suit.
The land was accordingly delivered to Harrison on the 24th of
December, 1787, and he has had peaceable possession of it ever
since. He made several partial payments, the last of which was
on the 16th of October, 1793, but there is no proof, that he ever
made any other or further payments since that time. This con-
tract and these payments are shewn by a bond, marked as the
plaintiffs' exhibit A, given by Harrison to Pattison and Westeneys,
dated on the 24th of December, 1787, with the acknowledgments
of the payments endorsed thereon. Some time after these transac-
tions Pattison and Westeueys died.

The defendant in his answer admits the contract for the land,
and his possession of it as stated in the bill, but he says, that in