496 MORETON v. HARRISON.

farther say, that the defendant did not promise or assume to pay
the debt at any time within twelve years before, the complainants
filed their bill. Regarding these allegations as two distinct pleas,
they are, as pleaded, each of them, informal and wholly insuffi-
cient. And, taking them as one plea, it is multifarious and double.
Duplicity is a vice in pleading, and singleness is no less necessary
in equity than at law. This plea must, therefore, be overruled.(e)

The object of this bill is to enforce an equitable lien by a ven-
dor against a vendee, and to have the land sold, in virtue thereof,
for the payment of the balance of the purchase money. Whether
a plea, that the cause of action had been more than twelve years
standing grounded on the act of assembly,(f) in any, the most
correct form, would avail against a claim of this kind, does not
appear to have been at all considered, or alluded to. I shall there-
fore express no opinion upon the subject.

Whereupon it is ordered, that the said pleas be and the same are
hereby overruled: and the defendant is required to make a good
and sufficient answer to the plaintiffs' bill of complaint on or before
the fifteenth day of February next.

The defendant filed his answer within the time prescribed; in
which he admitted the purchase and possession, but relied on the
lapse of time, &c. The plaintiff put in a general replication; and
commissions were issued and testimony taken and returned; after
which, with the leave of the court, the plaintiffs so amended their
bill as to make the heirs at law of the late James Pattison, who at
the time of his death was seized of the whole legal title to the
lands, parties plaintiffs in this suit.

appearing, tins defendant doth demur in law thereunto; and humbly demands the
judgment of this honourable court, whether he shall be compelled to put in any
further or other answer to the said bill; and humbly prays to be hence dismissed
with his reasonable costs in this behalf most wrongfully sustained.

THOMAS JENINGS, for Deft.

2d September, 1789.—ROGERS, Chancellor.—Decreed, that the bill aforesaid of the
complainant be dismissed, and the same is hereby dismissed; and that the said com-
plainant pay to the said defendant his costs in this behalf expended.—Chancery Pro-
ceedings, Lib. S. H. H., letter B. 722.

N. B. Recollecting, as has been before explained, (H. K. Chase's Case, ante, 217,1
that a demurrer is overruled by a plea, it is obvious, that this decree must have been
founded upon the propriety of thus pleading two pleas, and upon the validity of oca
or both of the pleas.

(e) Whitbread v. Brockhurst, 1 Bro. C. C. 417; S. C 2 Ves. & Bea. 153, note.
(f) 1715, ch. 23, s. 6.