CUNNINGHAM v. BROWNING. 325

incipiem title against every person who has not before taken some
method to secure the same land.(p) It is held, upon common law
principles, that the grant relates back to the date of the specifica-
tion; and, by a kind of jus postliminii, the purchaser is deemed to
have had a perfect legal title from that period to all intents and
-purposes whatever, (q) He may maintain an action of trespass for
any injury done to the land within that interval of time ;(r) and he
may, in that interval, if he has paid the whole caution money,
obtain a warrant of resurvey, which is only incident to a legal
title, and cannot be founded upon a mere equitabk right of any
kind.(s) On the death intestate of the holder of such an imperfect
legal title, the right descends to his heirs, as real estate, to whom
alone the patent can be granted. This doctrine of relation is founded
upon principles of common law altogether and exclusively, (t)
There are, however, some cases in which this imperfect title, which
precedes the grant, is spoken of as being an equitable interest.(u)
But that cannot properly be called an equitable title, which a court
of equity cannot enforce, or have specifically executed. And it
would seem strange to call that an equitable title, which, after a
grant has issued, all common law courts, upon the common law
principle of relation, treat as the commencement of a perfect legal
title. Besides, to speak of an imperfect legal title as an equitable
interest, has a tendency to confuse legal distinctions, and to
obscure that which is otherwise sufficiently plain and clear.

In reference to the jurisdiction of the Chancellor, in cases of
caveat, the distinction between legal and equitable rights, properly
so called, is unknown. The true and only difference, as regards
his power in such cases, being that which exists between imperfect
and perfect legal titles; those which are merely in fieri, and those
which are complete. The cognizance of all controversies respect-
ing imperfect legal titles derived immediately from the State,
belongs exclusively and finally to the Chancellor in his common
law capacity as the keeper of the great seal, the affixing df which
is essential to the authentication of a patent; which capacity of
the Chancellor, as relates to patent grants for land, is designated

(p) Land Ho. Ass. 461.—(q) 3 Blac. Com. 210.—(r) Chapline v. Harvey, 3 H. &
McH. 396.—(s) Land Ho. Ass. 152, 149, 420, 427, 447, 455.—(t) Lloyd v. Tilgh-
man, 1 H. & McH. 85; Spalding v. Reeder, 1 H. & McH. 180; Hath's Lessee v.
Polk, 1 H. &McH. 363; Report of D. Dulany, 1 H. & McH. 553; Kelly's Lessee 9.
Greenfield, 2 H. & McH. 133; West v. Hughes, 1 H. & J. 13; Beall's Lessee v. Beall,
1 H. & J. 347.—(u) Howard v. Cromwell, 4 H, & McH. 329, & 1 H. & J. 118; Ring,
gold v. Malott, 1 H. & J. 317; Beall's Lessee v. Beall, 1 H. & J. 348.