IGLEHART v. ARMIGER. 525

money; or by a transfer of the bonds, or notes, given as a security
for the payment of the purchase money, would be of the most j
ruinous consequence to titles to real estates. It would completely
break down the statute of frauds, and all the acts of Assembly
requiring conveyances of lands to be recorded; according to which
acts no estate for above seven years in any land shall pass or take
effect, unless the written conveyance, by which it is made, be within
six months thereafter put upon record, and thus made accessible
to all concerned. A common bond, or a mere promissory note
passing with a blank endorsement from hand to hand, might carry
with it an incumbrance upon a real estate of the most binding
and extensive nature. Besides, if such assignable or negotiable
instruments were permitted to carry with them any such equitable
lien, aliens and others, incapable of directly taking any such
estate, might thus acquire and hold a much larger interest in land
than is allowed by our law.(J) This certainly ought not to be
permitted; and there is no authority sanctioning any such
principle. (K)

But where there has been a bond or promissory note given for
the. payment of the purchase money, which does not impair the
equitable Hen, the assignment of such security must operate as
a tacit relinquishment of the equitable lien; because the assignee
and vendee are thereby placed in the relationship of creditor and
debtor; and the vendor having thus finally waived the right to
enforce his equitable lien, it can never again be revived in his
favour; unless his privilege as vendor has been kept up and con-
tinued by the holding of him answerable as assignor of the securi-
ties given for the payment of the purchase money,

Although it is admitted, that no adjudged case can be found in
the English books to sustain the position, that an equitable lien
may be assigned, or that it virtually passes along with the assign-
ment of the bonds given for the payment of the purchase money:
yet it is said, that the principle has been sanctioned by the deci-
sions of this court.

The case principally relied on is, that of Brewer and Mackubin
v. Nicholls, 8th July 1824. In that case Arnold was the vendor;
and he, as such, transferred to Brewer and Mackubin all the interest
he held in the land, subject to Nicholls's contract as vendee; and

(J) 1784, ch. 58; Hughes v, Edwards, 9 Wheat. 496.—(K) Bug. Yemi, & Pur.
306.—(1) White v. Williams, 1 Paige, 502; Wilson v. Graham, 5 Mun. 297.