RANDALL v. HODGES.—3 BLAND. 475
Here executors and administrators are required to account within
a limited time; and, if they fail to do so voluntarily, they may be
cited before the Orphans' Court and compelled to render an' ac-
count. The adjusting of such accounts by the Orphans' Court
appears to be, in most respects, a part of its merely voluntary, or
ex parte jurisdiction; for it disposes of the whole matter without
opposition; and it has not been clothed with the power to entertain
jurisdiction of a suit instituted for an account against an executor
or administrator, at the instauce of any one but a legatee, or next
*of kin. 3 Blac. Com. 98: 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 15, s. 12.
When an executor or administrator presents himself before
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the Orphans' Court, for the purpose of voluntarily rendering an
account, it is only authorized to receive and pass the account in a
particular manner and upon vouchers of a specified description.
The inventory including all chattels real, personal property and
debts, due to the deceased, forms the aggregate of the debts or
charges; and the payment of debts and expenses as shewn by the
vouchers then produced form the sum total of the credits tor which
he prays to be allowed. After the account is thus adjusted and
finished it is recorded. And when the whole estate cannot be
finally settled by one account, the executor or administrator is
allowed to pass a first, second, &c. account, until the whole is
closed. 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 10; Dep. Com. Guide, 48; 1831, ch.
315, s. 4.
According to this course of proceeding in the settlement of the
accounts of an executor or administrator, which prevailed under
the Provincial Government, and has been continued ever since,
when the specially described vouchers or documents, from which
the account was made, have been allowed by the Court; it is said
to be proper to set a mark on them denoting the allowance and
entry, lest they should happen to be offered a second time,'and the
estate be doubly charged. Dep. Com. Guide,39. Whence it clearly
appears, that although the account itself is recorded, yet that the
vouchers, or the proofs from which it has been framed are never
impounded, as in England; Nielson v. Cordell, 8 Ves. 146; or re-
tained by the Court for any purpose; nor are they made a part of
the record, or considered as of themselves, like an original will,
forming a portion of the records or proceedings of the Court; since,
as it is said they are marked; because being at once re-delivered
to the executor or administrator they may be offered a second
time. Bowyer v. Green, 6 Exch. Rep. 87.
These testimonials whereby an executor or administrator sustains
his account ought not, certainly, to'be allowed a higher degree of
importance than similar documents brought before this Court by
litigating parties. When books and papers are brought into this
Court, as parts of the necessary evidence in a case, they are,
during the time of their being so detained, said to be impounded;
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