54 STRIKE'S CASE.—1 BLAND.

sequently, and by way of loan on the security of those deeds; and
they were understood by the parties to be expressly to avoid the
payment of the creditors of Rogers, or of Henderson & Rogers.
And, as evidence of this alleged fraud, the plaintiffs state, that a
considerable part of the money paid by Strike to Rogers, was ex-
pended by Strike on one of the lots, after the execution of the
deeds, and charged to Rogers as a part of the purchase money;
that another portion of the pretended purchase money was ex-
pended by Rogers in erecting a furnace, and other permanent
buildings on the other lot; that another part of the alleged pur-
chase money was a sum paid by Strike to Jacob Small, long after
the execution of those deeds, and even after the application of
Rogers for the benefit of * the insolvent laws, and he, Strike,
59 had been appointed the trustee of Rogers; that Rogers,
during two years after the date of those deeds, continued to re-
ceive the rents, and to pay the ground rents and taxes of those
lots; that Strike, since the execution of the deeds, has often prom-
ised Rogers to reconvey the lots on the repayment of the money
paid by him; and that, in October, 1812, the defendant, Rogers,
applied to Baltimore County Court lor the benefit of the in-
solvent laws, on which occasion the parties procured the defend-
ant, Strike, to be named as his trustee, the better to conceal those
fraudulent assignments.

Upon which the bill prays, that those deeds of assignment may
be declared null and void; that the lots may be sold for the benefit
of the creditors of Rogers, and of Henderson & Rogers; that
Strike may be compelled to account for the rents and profits of
the lots from the date of the deeds; and that the plaintiffs may
have a subpoena against Rogers and Strike to answer, &c. But
there is no prayer for general relief.

This bill propounds as an interrogatory to be answered by the
defendants, "whether, at the period of executing the said convey-
ances, the said Henderson & Rogers had not actually stopped
payment as a commercial house; and whether certain property of
theirs had not been seized by certain persons alleging themselves
creditorsf?" But it is not alleged, that Robert Henderson, the
partner oi Rogers, was dead or insolvent; nor is it distinctly
averred, that the partnership is actually insolvent; nor is Hender-
son made a party to this suit.

The defendant, Nicholas Strike, on the 29th of November, 1817,
put in his answer to this bill, in which he says, that he knows
nothing of any debt being due from Henderson & Rogers to the
plaintiffs: that the deeds of assignment were made by Rogers to
him bona fide; the full consideration money, as set forth in them,
having been paid by him to Rogers; and they were not executed
to him to cover any loan of money due by Henderson & Rogers, or
either of them; nor were those lots conveyed to him in trust, or