JONES v. JONES, 445

the authority conferred on him by the fieri facias he had previously
levied; and if it should appear, that his authority to proceed
with the execution was well founded, to ascertain whether the
surplus of the proceeds of the sale, so made, is to be considered
as real assets to be taken from the hands of the heirs, or to be
accounted for as personal assets by an administrator of the intes-
tate; and also to inquire whether there is any mode in which this
court, by any exercise of power within its own legitimate sphere,
can compel an officer of another and a superior tribunal to place a
fund, now in his hands by their authority, under the direction of
this court to be disposed of as prayed by these plaintiffs.

It was a well settled principle of the common law of England,
that the real estate of a debtor could not be taken in execution at
the suit of a citizen creditor, and sold for the satisfaction of the
debt. This rule was considered as a fair and necessary result from
the nature of the feudal tenures, according to which all the lands
of that country were held. And, as the most liberal species of
those tenures was expressly declared to be that by which all the
lands of Maryland should be held, it followed, that real estate
could be no further subject to be taken in execution here than the
same kind of estate was liable in England.(a)

In the case of the king, however, an execution always issued
against the lands as well as the goods of a public debtor; because
the debtor was considered as being not only bound in person, but
as a feudatory who held mediately or immediately from the king;
and therefore, holding what he had from the king, he was from
thence to satisfy what he owed to the king.(6) As a consequence
of this liability, and for the public benefit, if a judgment was
obtained against a public debtor by the king, he thereby acquired
a lien upon the real estate of such debtor, which took effect not
merely from the date of the judgment, but by relation from the
commencement of the suit to the exclusion of all subsequent
incumbrances.(c) In England the king's debt is preferred in exe-
cution and in the administration of a deceased's estate, to that of
a citizen; which right of preference was in Maryland extended to
the lord proprietary.(d) After our revolution it was held to have
devolved, according to the principles of the common law, upon

(a) Charter of Maryland, s. 5 & 18; Gilb, Exch. 89.—(6) Gilb. Execu. 3,
(c) Pow. Mort. by Coven, c. 2S, s. 9; Gilb. Exch. 93; Rorke v. Dayrell, 4 T. R. 410;
Sug. Pow. 184.—(d) 1650, ch. 28.