WATKINS v. WORTHINGTON. 519

and protection, into a means of impairing the rights of others.
There are instances in which a remedy may be suspended in favour
of an infant; but it is believed, there is no case in which a court
of justice is allowed, at its discretion, to withhold relief from a
plaintiff who has established his claim, or to impose such terms
upon him, as may greatly delay or endanger the loss of his whole
legal right.

At the common law, there are many instances where, on an
action being brought against an infant, the parol shall demur; or
in other words, where the prosecution of the suit to judgment and
execution shall be suspended, until the infant attains his full age.
If an action of debt be brought by a bond creditor, against an
infant heir, in respect of real assets descended to him, the parol
shall demur, until he attains his full age, even though the debt be
clear and indisputable. The privilege of the heir himself, is how-
ever, in this respect, anomalous, and confined to the heir alone.
It was allowed to him as well on account of his inability to defend
himself, as also from an absolute deficiency of funds, arising from
the nature of the feudal tenures, by which the whole estate, with its
rents and profits, were given to the guardian in chivalry. This
privilege was, at the common law, for some reasons not now ap-
pearing, extended indiscriminately to all heirs; and to cases where
judgment having been obtained, and the defendant died before
execution, the heir was within age; and in favour of the widow,
and all the heirs in co-parcenary during the infancy of any one
of the parceners, (g)

This legal privilege was distinctly recognized by one of our
early acts of assembly; (h) and by another of them it has been
expressly declared, that all persons under the age of twenty-one
years, entitled to any hereditaments by purchase, shall not be
obliged to answer any suit in relation thereto, any more or other-
wise than they would be if they had become their right by de-
scent, (i) Hence it appears, that in all cases where an infant,
who takes by purchase, might have had the privilege of causing the
parol to demur, had he taken by descent, the like privilege shall
be extended to him for the protection of the inheritance held by
him as a purchaser. And it was also the practice of the land

(g} Co. Litt. 290; Markal's case, 6 Co. 4; Plasket v. Beeby, 4 East 485,—
(h) 1721, ch. 14, s. 2.—(i) 1729, ch. 24, s. 16.