BTCHISON v. DORSEY.—1 BLAND. 503

reason why the process of attachment should not be so enlarged as
to comprehend *all cases; Yerby v. Lackland, 6 H. & J. 451;
Harden v. Moo res, 7 H. & J. 4; and be allowed as a means 535
of obtaining satisfaction of a decree in equity as well as of a judg-
ment at common law. (/) But this subject appears to have been,
some years since, maturely considered by the Legislature, who at
that time armed the Court of Chancery with ad such new and
additional process as was then deemed necessary to an effectual
exercise of its powers; 1785, ch. 72, s. 25; and the common law
process of judicial attachment was not then given. Shivers v.
Wilson, 5 H. &: J. 130. I am therefore of opinion, that no such
attachment can be awarded as prayed.

Whereupon it is ordered, that the petition of the plaintiffs be
and the same is hereby dismissed with costs.

ETCHISON v. DORSEY.
SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE.

If, on a bill for a specific performance, a decree be passed directing the de-
fendant to convey on the payment of the purchase money; there cannot
afterwards be a decree ordering the plaintiff to pay the purchase money
without a cross bill; although such a reciprocal decree might have been
passed in the first instance, had it been called for, without a cross bill.

This bill was filed on the 12th of September, 1827, by Ephraim
Etchison, Odle Wheeler and Caroline his wife, Mortimer Dorsey,

Higginson, the defendant, is not to be found in his bailiwick; but, that he
has left the subpoena for costs in this cause with Mr. Patrick Sympson, at-
torney in fact for the defendant. Therefore ordered, that attachment issue
in the same manner as is directed out of the Courts of common law.—Chan.
Proc. lib. P. L. fol. 568.

(f) The process of attachment to enable a creditor to obtain satisfaction of
his debt, appears, by the Acts of 1647, ch. 3, and 1682, ch. 2, to have been
engrafted into our Code among the earliest formations of its judicial pro-
ceedings; and has been in constant use, with few alterations, ever since.
About the year 1705, in a report made by the then ex-Chancellor, Lord
Somers, to the House of Lords, it was among other things proposed, that
"the debts that any defendant hath owing unto him maybe attached in
execution, in satisfaction for debt and damages recovered against him; and
a day shall be given to the debtor to appear, the Court shall give judgment
for the plaintiff to recover BO much as shall be attached, &c., as in London
upon a foreign attachment."—Parke's Hist. Co. Chan. 274.

Since this decision was pronounced, it has been declared by the Legisla-
ture, that an attachment may be laid upon debts due the defendant upon
judgments or decrees, 1831, ch. 321; and also that a fieri facias, or attach-
ment, may be laid upon any interest which a defendant may have in the
capital or joint stock of any corporation, or in the debt of any corporation
transferable upon the books of such corporation: 1832, ch. 307.