260 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

such right cannot be disputed,) what is to prevent him from
invoking the aid of the court, for his protection, if the judg-
ment given for the money remains unpaid.

The argument that the judgment is no more than a general
lien docs not militate against this right of the owner of the
land. His title to the protection of the court does not rest
upon his rights as a judgment creditor, but upon the act of as-
sembly, and upon that settled and fundamental doctrine accord-
ing to which the owner of property, taken for the public use, is
entitled to compensation, and as Chancellor Kent says, to have
it paid before, or at least concurrently with the seizure and ap-
propriation of it.

The complainants in this bill do not ask the court to enforce
the payment of their judgment; but showing the judgment to
be for the sum awarded by the jury, and stating other facts in-
dicative of peril to their interests, unless the arm of this court
is extended to their relief, they ask that the property condemned
may be protected from injury until the money is paid, and this,
in my judgment, they have a right to ask.

The only remaining question relates to the obligation of the
company to pay interest on the sum fixed by the inquisition.
The bill prays, that they may be restrained by injunction from
digging their canal through the lands of the complainants men-
tioned and described in the inquisition, without first paying to
them the sum of $13,266, with interest thereon, from the 8th
day of October, 1838, or until the further order of the court.

The defendants deny their obligation to pay interest, and
this is one of the principal points in dispute between the
parties.

It is shown by the evidence that very shortly after the affirm-
ation of the inquisition, on the 8th of October, 1838, the de-
fendants entered upon the land, and commenced cutting their
excavations; and, consequently, as I apprehend, their liability
to pay the money was then complete. They had no right to
enter upon the land at all, except under the circumstances men-
tioned in the 19th section, without first paying the money.

Being so liable, the obligation to pay interest would seem to