496 WATKINS v. WORTHINGTON.—2 BLAND.

gether, in favor of an infant heir or devisee; and therefore, does
no wrong in granting relief upon terms.

The interests of infants, femes covert, and persons non compos
mentis, are always especially attended to, when brought before a
Court of equity; but I have never understood that the course of
justice could be arrested, or in any manner turned awry for their
benefit. Their disabilities always excite sympathy, and suggest
caution where their interests may be affected; and so far the equi-
table circumspection of the Court in regard to such persons, may
be considered as affording to them a just ground to call for the
most careful deliberation; and for its ex officio protection, so far as
may be compatible with a duty to others, and an impartial admin-
istration of justice; but under no circumstances, have they been
allowed to pervert any such claims to a special consideration and
* protection, into a means of impairing the rights of others.
519 There are instances in which a remedy may be suspended in
favor of an infant; but it is believed, there is no case in which a
Court of justice is allowed, at its discretion, to withhold relief from
a plaintiff who has established his claim, or to impose such terms
upon him, as may greatly delay or endanger the loss of his whole
legal right.

At the common law, there are many instances where, on an
action being brought against an infant, the parol shall demur; or
in other words, where the prosecution of the suit to judgment and
execution shall be suspended, until the infant attains its full age.
If an action of debt he brought by a bond creditor against an
infant heir, in respect of real assets descended to him, the parol
shall demur, until he attains his full age, even though the debt
be clear and indisputable. The privilege of the heir himself, is
however, in this respect, anomalous, and confined to the heir
alone. It was allowed to him as well on account of his inability
to defend himself, as also from an absolute deficiency of funds,
arising from the nature of the feudal tenures, by which the whole
estate, with its rents and profits, were given to the guardian in
chivalry. This privilege was, at the common law, for some reasons
not now appearing, extended indiscriminately to all heirs; and to
cases where judgment having been obtained, and the defendant
died before execution, the heir was within age; and in favor of
the widow, and all the heirs in co-parcency during the infancy of
any one of the parceners. Co. Litt. 290; Markal's Case, G Co. 4;
Plaskett v. Beeby, 4 East, 485.

This legal privilege was distinctly recognized by one of our
early Acts of Assembly; 1721, ch. 14, s. 2; and by another of them
it has been expressly declared, that all persons under the age of
twenty-one years, entitled to any hereditaments by purchase, shall
not be obliged to answer any suit in relation thereto, any more or
otherwise than they would be if they had become their right by