40 TESSIER v. WYSE.—3 BLAND

the real estate of a deceased debtor could be sold for the payment
of his debts; and that as its provisions applied only to infant heirs;
that, therefore, there was no method by which a simple contract
creditor could obtain satisfaction by a sale of his deceased debtor's
real estate in the hands of his adult heirs. Tyson v. Hollingsworth,
2 Bland, 327, note. To remove all misapprehension of the law, in
this particular alone, it was in relation to this matter specially de-
clared, " That the provisions of the fifth section of the said Act
(1785, ch. 72,) and of the several Acts supplementary thereto, in
relation to the sales of real estate, be extended to defendants of
full age." 1818, ch. 193, s. 2. But the legislative enactment thus ex-
tended was manifestly made, as has been shewn, for the benefit of
creditors; and therefore, if its language could be deemed ambigu-
ous, certainly it could not be so construed as to curt all or embarrass
their rights. And as it has been shewn, that there being assets in
the hands of the personal representative could not prevent a
specialty creditor from enforcing payment from the heir, who was
bound to the extent of assets descended; and that there was
nothing in the Act, thus extended, which could have been in-
tended to diminish that legal right of specialty creditors, or to
circumscribe its operation in favor of all creditors, in a Court of
Chancery, since the adoption of the Statute of 1732; it neces-
sarily follows, that, by having its provisions extended to defen-
dants of full age, whatever of doubt or misapprehension may have
been removed, no alteration whatever can have been made in the
law, in this, or in any other respect, prejudicial to the interests of
creditors.

Before we take leave of this subject, it may be well to advert to
the case where there is no heir or devisee of the deceased, and the
real estate of the deceased debtor reverts by escheat to the State—
although in England and in Maryland, the State, upon the princi-
ples of the feudal system, took by escheat clear of the claims of
* general creditors, it seems to have been a matter of course
53 to direct all creditors to be paid out of the confiscated or
escheated property of their debtor. Yet as the State could not be
sued or in any way coerced to make any such application of
property, taken or fallen into its hands; Jones v. Goodchild, 3 P.
Will 33; Bedford v. Coke, 2 Ves. 116; Burgess v. Wheats, 1 Eden,
203; Middleton v. Spicer, 1 Bro. C. C. 202; Megit v. Johnson, 1
Doug. 542; Robert Fuller^ Case, 14 May, 1680, Land Record, lib.
C. B. 45; John Webster's Vase, 27 November, 1080, Lund Records,
lib. C. B. 60, 102; it was declared, that in case any person should
die seized of any lands intestate, without heirs and indebted, and
not leave personal estate sufficient to pay his debts, any of his
creditors might file a petition in Chancery suggesting such facts,
and praying that such real estate might be sold for the payment
of the debts of deceased; and the Attorney-General upon notice