552 DUVALL v. WATERS.—I BLAND.

rent as due to himself; and he once-drove from it his son; who, as
well as Ratcliff, admitted, after the date of the deed, that they
had no right to it. There is no clear unsuspicious proof, that either
Nathan I. Waters or Samuel Ratcliff ever paid to Nathan Waters
anything whatever for this land. The one, as his son, and the
other, as the husband of one of his daughters, no doubt had his
confidence and shared his best affections; and the more so as they
were both poor and had no way of accumulating large sums of
money.

In short, it is clear, from all the circumstances of this case, that
this deed, of the 17th of February, 1824, was in truth, made, as
Nathan Waters himself declared to one of the witnesses, merely
"for the purpose of protecting his property until he could pay his
debts," and, that it was a conveyance contrived with the express
intent to defraud his creditors; or as it is declared in the strong
language of the venerable Statute of 1570, "not only to the let or
hindrance of the due course and execution of law and justice,
but also to the overthrow of all true and plain dealing, bargaining
and chevisance between man and man.'' 13 Eliz. c. 5. I shall
therefore pronounce both these deeds, tor the second must follow
the fate of the first, to be utterly void as against this plaintiff if
his claim under the return be a sound one.

The next inquiry, therefore, is, as to the validity of the plain-
tiff's claim. The property in question was sold by the sheriff
under and by virtue of a writ of fieri facias issued on a judgment
obtained in an action at common law by Samuel Peach against this
defendant Nathan Waters; and this plaintiff makes title as the
purchaser at that sale. But these defendants object, that the
description of the lands as given by the sheriff, in his return to
the fieri facias, is so vague and uncertain as to convey no valid
title to the plaintiff as purchaser. What degree of certainty in
the specification of the land taken and sold is necessary to be
given by the sheriff, in his return to the fieri facias under which

the levy was * was made, is a question of importance, and
589 deserves to be carefully considered.

By the common law land was not liable to be taken in execution
and sold for the payment of debts. Under a fieri facias nothing,
according to the common law, could be taken but chattels, movea-
ble property, the industrial fruits of the earth then growing, such
as corn, wheat, &c., or leases for years, of which the writ com-
manded the sheriff to levy the debt, bj a sale, converting them
into money. The sale of all personal property passing the right
without any more solemn act than a mere delivery; a sale and de-
livery, by the sheriff of such property, was held to be sufficient in
all cases to vest a complete and absolute title in the purchaser,
without any particular specification of the thing, thus taken and
sold. It was, therefore, unnecessary for the sheriff to make any