CAMPBELL'S CASE.—2 BLAND. 215

Act oi' Parliament, although not named in it: because the legisla-
tive enactment is only another form of effecting that which might
have been done by an ordinary course of judicial proceeding.
Weatby v. Kiernan, Amb. 697.

In a case, however, where a private Act oi' Parliament was
passed authorizing the sale of a real estate during the infancy of
the heir, to pay debts, which directed that the mortgage should be
first paid, and it afterwards appeared that there were judgments
by which the estate was bound prior to the mortgage, it was never-
theless held, that the Act mast be obeyed, and the mortgage first
paid. But it seemed to be admitted, that by virtue of the genera!
saving in the Act, the judgment creditors might make use of their
incumbrances as they could at law. This determination appears
to have been pronounced with some hesitation and reluctance.
Ward v. Cecil, 2 Vern. 711. The Parliament, by thus arbitrarily
altering the rights of the parties, and ordering the mortgage to be
first paid, to the prejudice of prior judgment creditors, exerted a
kind of supreme power, which it has been declared should never be
exercised upon any occasion, and was too dangerous to be entrusted
even to that body. Kames' Pri. Eq. b. 1, p. 1, ,s. 4. No Court of
justice, of England, has ever ventured to assume such a power, in
any form; for. as it has been said, men's deeds and wills, by
* which they dispose of their estates, are laws which they 229
are allowed to make, and which are not to be altered even by the
king in his Courts of law or conscience. Cary v. Bertie, 2 Vern.
337; Wright v.Simpson, 6 Ves, 731; Kendall, Ex parte, 17 Ves. 525;
Summer v. Powell, 2 Merix. 30.

It has been held in England, that a private Act of Parliament
which had "been obtained by fraudulent suggestions, or by a sup-
pression of the truth, might, on that ground alone, be relieved
against by any Court of law or equity in which the fraud could be
fully and clearly shewn. As was done in a case in the High Court
of Chancery of England, before our Revolution, in which an Act
of the Legislature of the then Province of Pennsylvania was, about
the year 1725, set aside on the ground of its having been obtained
by fraudulent suggestions. Perm v. .Baltimore, 1 Ves. 454; 5 Cruise
Dig. tit. 33, 5, 50. (l) And so too, in some other cases, where

(l) Francis Fane, counsel to the board of trade, in his opinion given to that
board, on the 3d of March. 1725, respecting an Act passed by the General
Assembly of Jamacia to foreclose a mortgage, says: "I think, in general,
that such laws would be greatly dangerous, and that the Legislature should
rarely interfere in matters of private right, without the greatest necessity;
but. I cannot see any great inconvenience in this case, but rather a necessity
indeed, for passing the law," &c. After which he proceeds further to say,
that " Mr. West, in bis report upon this matter, is of opinion, that all facts
alleged in the colony bills must be taken to be true. This rule may, gene-
rally, be true; but I think, in adversary bills of this nature, which are only