14 STRIKE'S CASE.

being several incumbrances, the first mortgagee uses his security
for the purpose of shielding the debtor from the junior mortgagees;
in such cases, such a fraudulent or wrongfully occupying tenant, or
an incumbrancer who makes such an ill use of his security, will be
charged with the full value; that is, with such an amount of rents
and profits as a skilful and diligent tenant might have made from
the land.(i)

In this case, Strike informs us in his answer, that he obtained
possession of the property in question, (the one lot actually, and
the other legally, as landlord of Rogers, on whose property he
levied a distress for rent in arrear,) under and by virtue of the
deeds from Rogers to him, on the date of them, and that he took
and received the whole rents and profits. Those deeds have been
declared null and void by the decree of May 1822, as against the
complainants, on the ground of fraud. It appears, then, that
Strike obtained possession of the property in question, fraudu-
lently; that he used those deeds against these creditors, and that
he wrongfully held the possession, and received the whole of the
rents and profits from the date of those deeds; consequently,
according to the principles of equity, by which this court is
governed, and I may venture to add, by the law of all civilized
nations, in relation to rents and profits, Strike must be charged
with the full value of the property in question, from the date of the
deeds, down to the date of the sale, when he was turned out of
possession.

In relation to the improvements, for which Strike claims an
allowance, one would suppose, that in the administration of a
system of jurisprudence in a civilized society, there could be no
flux and reflux of the principles of justice; that however they
might be altered or reformed, they could never, for any length of
time, drop into disuse and then be called up again, and generally
applied. But it would seem there is a fluctuation, perhaps
indeed a mere change of fashion as to principles of law, as in every
thing else. (j) It does not appear from any thing I can learn, that the
doctrine, in relation*to an allowance to the occupying tenant for
ameliorations, except as to mortgagees in possession, has ever for
a great length of time past, and until very recently, been presented
to the consideration of a court of justice in this State as a subject
of controversy; and, perhaps, never before so urged and investigated

(t*) Powell, Mortg. 292, n,- (j)"The law sometimes sleeps, and judgment awakens
It; for, dormit aliquando lex moritor nunquam." Mary Portington's case, 10 Co. 42.