ETCHISON v. DORSEY. 535

hend all cases ;(j) and be allowed as a means of obtaining satisfac-
tion of a decree in equity as well as of a judgment at common law.(k)
But this subject appears to have been, some years since, maturely
considered by the legislature, who at that time armed the Court of
Chancery with all such new and additional process as was then
deemed necessary to an effectual exercise of its powers ;(1) and the
common law process of judicial attachment was not then given.(m)
I am therefore of opinion, that no such attachment can be awarded
as prayed.

Whereupon it is ordered, that the petition of the plaintiffs be
and the same is hereby dismissed with costs.

•
ETCHISON v. DORSEY.

If, on a bill for a specific performance, a decree be passed directing the defendant to
convey on the payment of the purchase money; there cannot afterwards be a
decree ordering the plaintiff to pay the purchase money without a cross bill;
although such a reciprocal decree might have been passed in the first instance, had
it been called for, without a cross bill.

This bill was filed on the 12th of September 1827, by Ephraim
Etchison, Odle Wheeler and Caroline his wife, Mortimer Dorsey,
Richard Dorsey, Nelson Norris and Eliza his wife, John Dorsey,
Caleb Dorsey, and John Hood and Louisa his wife, against Mary

( j) Yerby v. Lackland, 6 H. & J. 451; Harden v. Moores, 7 H. & J. 4.

(k) The process of attachment to enable a creditor to obtain satisfaction of his
debt, appears, by the acts of 1647, ch. 3, and 1632, ch. 2, to have been engrafted into
our code among the earliest formations of its judicial proceedings; and has been in
constant use, with few alterations, ever since. About the year 1705, in a report
made by the then ex-chancellor, Lord Somers, to the House of Lords, it was among
other things proposed, that " the debts that any defendant hath owing unto him may
be attached in execution, in satisfaction for debt and damages recovered against
him; and a day shall be given to the debtor to appear, the court shall give judgment
for the plaintiff to recover so much as shall be attached, &c., as in London upon a
foreign attachment."—Parke's Hist. Co. Chan. 274.

Since this decision was pronounced, it has been declared by the legislature, that
an attachment may be laid upon debts due the defendant upon judgments or decrees,

1831. ch. 321; and also that a fieri facias, or attachment, may be laid upon any inter-
est which a defendant may have in the capital or joint stock of any corporation, or
in the debt of any corporation transferable upon the books of such corporation |

1832. ch. 307.

(J) 1785, ch. 72, s. 25.—(m) Shivers v. Wilson, 5 H. & J.130.