PRICE v. TYSON.—3 BLAND. 397

cess, or by the help of any other tribunal, so they be competent,
credible, and pertinent.

This bill does, in effect, perform the office of a summons for
witnesses to attend and testify before the Court by which the plain-
tiff 's case is to be tried and determined. It collects evidence to
be used in that Court, in like manner, as the testimony of wit-
nesses who may be brought before it, and sworn to speak the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Looking to the
general character of unreserved fulness and frankness, always ex-
pected from, and so commonly attributed to answers to bills in
Chancery; if these defendants were to stop short with a bare re-
sponse to the plaintiff's interrogatories, and fail to set forth, in
their answer, the matters necessary in any way to their defence at
law, it might, perhaps, be objected in the Court of common law,
as it certainly might well be insisted upon here, on a hearing with
a view to relief, that they should be allowed to offer no proof in
relation to any defence which they had failed to rely upon in their
answer; upon the ground that when called on to shew their de-
fence, * they had tacitly waived all such matters as were not
set forth in their answer. 400

And besides, it is certain that a mere bill of discovery may be
so amended, after the defendant has answered, as to pray for relief
in this Court; and it is an established rule, that in answering even
such an amended bill, the defendant must confine himself to it
alone, and cannot be permitted to put in a complete answer over
again: and therefore, it is not only allowable, but necessary for
the defendant's own safety, that he should set forth and rely upon
his defence in his answer to such an original bill, lest it should be
so amended as to make it necessary for him to sustain such a de-
fence even in this Court. Hildyard v. Cressy, 3 Atk. 303.

I am, therefore, satisfied that a defendant, in making answer to
a mere bill of discovery, must be permitted to introduce all matters
in avoidance; and to take as wide a range, over the whole case,
as would be allowed to him if the bill prayed for relief from this
Court as well as discovery; and that there is, in this respect, no
material difference between a mere bill of discovery and a bill for
relief.

This then is a case in which the plaintiff excepts to the defend-
ants' answer; because it sets forth various matters which are im-
pertinent; and also, because it attempts to control a written by a
verbal contract.

It has always been the practice in this Court, in all eases where
either party excepts to the pleadings for impertinence, scandal, or
insufficiency, to file the exceptions in writing, and then move tor
an order appointing a day for the hearing, on notice to the op-
posite party, or his solicitor. And all such exceptions, in the
same case, may be brought to a hearing at the same time and