534 WATKINS v. DORSETT.

or be at all touched in equity for the benefit of creditors, (f)
The reason, it is said, why choses in action, according to the
general rules of the Court of Chancery, are not liable to execu-
tion is, because the court takes notice, that the creditor has a
method, by the ordinary rules of law, either to compel satisfac-
tion, by seizing the person; or, where the person cannot be taken,
by proceeding to an outlawry and taking the lands as well as effects
into the hands of the king, which, as of course, are then applied
in satisfaction of creditors, (g) Now, as it is evident, that our
process of attachment is, in many respects, equivalent to this mode
of obtaining satisfaction by means of an outlawry, which was
never in use here, and as this court must take notice of the remedy
by attachment, it may well be held, that a creditor cannot be per-
mitted to come here for relief in any case where he could obtain
it by attachment at law. But, where a party cannot obtain relief
at all, either by an ordinary execution, or by the extraordinary pro-
cess of outlawry or attachment by reason of the peculiar situation
of the property, or the equitable nature of the title to it, he may
obtain relief by bill in equity.(/i)

But the mode of obtaining relief by bill in chancery must neces-
sarily be comparatively tardy and expensive; and where the fund,
thus pursued, consists of mere choses in action, the delay may afford
to a fraudulently disposed debtor ample time to place it entirely
beyond the reach of any process that can be issued by a court of
equity; so that, after the creditor had thus obtained a decree in his
favour, he would be no nearer to relief than when he began.

I have met with no evidence of any well settled practice shew-
ing, that this court had conceived itself authorized to allow a party
to sue out a judicial attachment, instead of any other execution, to
obtain satisfaction of a decree.(i) Yet I can see no just reason why
the process of attachment should not be so enlarged as to compre-

(/) Dundas v. Dutens, 1 Ves. jun. 196; Guy v. Pearkes, 18 Ves. 196; Franckyin
v. Calhoun, 3 Swan. 276; Pelham v. Newcastle, 3 Swan. 290; McCarthy v. Goold,
1 Ball St Beat. 389; Grogan v. Cooke, 2 Ball & Beat. 233.—(g) Edgell v. Haywood,
3 Atk. 356.—(h) Edgell v. Haywood, 3 Atk. 352; Willis, Plea. 115; Hadden v. Spa-
der, 20 John. 554; Ford v. Philpot, 5 H. & J. 312.

(i) RICKOTT v: HIGGINSON.—1720.—subpoena for costs. Mr. Warman, sheriff of
Ann Arundel county, comes into court and certifies, that Mr. Gilbert Higginson, the
defendant, is not to be found in his bailiwick; but, that he has left the supaena for
costs in this cause with Mr. Patrick Sympson, attorney in fact for the defendant.
Therefore ordered, that attachment issue in the same manner as is directed out of the
courts of common law.-—Chan. Proc. Lib. P. L. fol. 568.