WALSH v. SMYTH.—3 BLAND. 7

plainants, it was ordered, that a commission issue to the com-
plainants' commissioners Thomas Russel, James B. Latimer, J.
Spear Nicholas, and Robert Wilson, Jr., unless the defendants
name and strike on or before the 27th of November, 1826. On
the 28th of December, 1826, a commission was issued accordingly.
A commission was issued on the 17th of February, 1830, to take
testimony on the part of the plaintiffs, which was returned and
filed on the 6th of March, 1830. Jared Bull, the only witness
examined, stated, that in the year 1794, he went to Georgia as
agent for the plaintiffs to examine and enquire into the title, situ-
ation and quality of the lands so purchased by them; that he could
find no such warrants for some of the lands as represented by the
vendors; that some of the lands were held by others under elder
patents; and that other parcels of the lands were within the Indian
Territory.

BLAND, C., 6th September. 1830.—This case standing ready for
hearing, and having been submitted on notes by the solicitors of
the parties, the proceedings were read and considered.

It is clear, that the purchase of the lands, which was the consid-
eration of the several bonds, held by the defendants, must be
taken as one entire and indivisible contract; although the bonds
themselves are several, and have, for a valuable consideration,
been assigned to and are now held by several distinct assignees.
Consequently, if the consideration of those bonds is to be deemed
a valid support for any one, it must, in like manner, be taken as a
* sufficiently legal foundation to sustain them all; and that
too. notwithstanding the default of the holders of any others 16
of them in not answering as warned by the order of publication.
The power of the Court to take the bill pro confesso for the benefit
of the plaintiff, upon a defendant not answering after a construc-
tive notice by publication, must be taken to be subject to the nature
of the case, and at its discretion; for otherwise, if the Court was
bound, as in a case of this kind, to take the bill pro confesso as
against an absent defendant who had failed to answer, then, it
might be compelled to pass a contradictory decree; to say, that as
against one defendant the consideration of a bond was legal and
valid; and yet as against another, that the same consideration was
corrupt and utterly worthless. It is certain that peculiar circum-
stances, in a case like this, where the bonds had passed into the
hands of several distinct assignees, might have given to the plain-
tiffs a separate ground of relief against one assignee which would
not be of any avail against the holders of the other bonds. But
here it is manifest, that all the bonds having the same common
consideration, that consideration must be impeached as to all, or
be allowed to stand as a legal support for all.