RINGGOLD'S CASE 17

the proceedings in such cases, and the awarding of execution being
considered incidents exclusively belonging to the court in possession
of the principal case,{&) So too in the federal courts there can be
no appeal in a chancery suit, but from the fined decree.(w) A decree
for the sale of mortgaged property has been deemed a final decree
within the meaning of the act of Congress ;(x) but it has been held,
that an order overruling a plea of the statute of limitations, and
directing the defendant to answer ;(y) or an order dissolving or re-
fusing to dissolve an injunction, is not a decree from which an appeal
will lie.(z) It is believed, that in all the States of our Union, in which
distinct Courts of Chancery exist, or in which any of their inferior
and original tribunals have been invested with the powers of a Court
of Chancery, the range of the right of appeal has been more or
dess limited; and that some regulations have been adopted with a
view to prevent the abuse of its exercise.(a) In North Carolina,
[all original jurisdiction in equity, beyond a small amount, was given
exclusively to the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, which were,
at one time, courts of last resort, and, of course, there could be no
appeal in equity from any of their decisions. (b)

In Maryland, although it appears, that the Court of Chancery
was one of the earliest of the judicial establishments of the Province,
yet there is nothing which shews, that an appeal was ever allowed
from any of its decrees, until it was expressly provided for by the
legislature. The act for regulating writs of error and granting
appeals from and to the courts of common law;(c) is, as its title
indicates, like all the previous acts upon the same subject, expressly
confined, in all its provisions, to cases at common law; and has
been followed out by a practice, in some particulars, different from
that of the English courts in like cases.(d) The existing act of
assembly, which allows of appeals from Chancery, seems to have
been a re-enactment of a law which had been passed a few years
before ;(e) it enacts, that it shall be lawful for any person who
conceives himself "aggrieved by any decree of the Chancery Court,
to have a» appeal to the governor and council," the then court of
appeals.(f) It is not said, that the right of appeal shall be

(u) The Hollen & Cargo, 1 Mason, 431.—(10) Act Cong. 24th Sept. 1789, ch. 20,
s 22-(x) Ray v. Law,, 3 Cran. 179.—(y) Rutherford, v. Fisher, 4 Dal. 22-(x)
Young v. Grundy, 6 Cran. 51; Gibbons v. Ogden, 6 Wheat. 448.—(a) 7 John Cha.
Ca. Gen Index, 22; Henning & Munford's Rep. 5 4 Desau. Rep.—(b) Haywood's
Rep.-(c)1713, ch. 4-(d) The State v. Buchanan, 5 H. & J. 331-(e) 1718, ch
10; 1720, ch. 20.-(f) 1721, ch. 14, s. 3.

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