TOWNSHEND v. DUNCAN. 53

many purposes treated as a legacy, and so considered, its payment
may certainly be enforced in equity, (i) These plaintiffs could not
proceed for the recovery of this annual sum, at common law, as
for a rent charge; because no right of is given by the
grantor, and it is not distrainable of common right: nor could
they enter upon and hold the land charged until they were satis-
fied; because the testator has given them no such authority. A
writ of annuity, being a remedy at law against the person of the
grantor of the annuity it follows, that a devisee could not avail
himself of it, as the devisor ceased to exist before the gift of
the annuity took effect. (j) The annual sum thus devised to
the plaintiff Anna Maria, being made payable out of the land,
might, however, be regarded as a rent seek; and as such, having
been made distrainable by statute, it might be held, that the
plaintiff should, in that way, obtain relief at law. (k) Or these
plaintiffs might, with better apparent hope of success, bring a
special action upon the case, the most flexible and comprehensive
form of action known to the common law; yet the embarrassments
and inconveniences of applying even that form of proceeding to
the purposes of obtaining relief, in a case like this, are obvious,
and would be very great. Before the statute which gave the power
to distrain for rent seek, the payment of such rents might be en-
forced in equity; and even since, relief has been granted, in cases
of rent charge, with an admitted power of distress and re-entry.
The remedy in equity is manifestly more convenient and effectual,

It is thereupon Decreed, that unless the defendant Thomas Callahan shall pay
unto the complainant Christopher Cox the sums stated by the auditor to be to him
due, amounting to £282 19s. 0d. current money, with interest thereon from the 22d
of March, 1787, the several tracts of land called Good Increase, Railey's Hazard,
Railey's Chance, and part of a tract of land called Shetland, supposed to He in
Queen Aim county, or such of them as descended from the aforesaid John Railey
unto Charles Railey, and have, by the said Charles Railey, been devised unto the
defendant Thomas Callahan, shall be assets in the hands of the said Callahan, and
shall be subject to execution from this court for the payment of the said sum, with
interest as aforesaid from the 22d day of March, 1787. And also for the payment of
the legal costs expended by the complainant in the prosecution of this suit, amount-
ing, as taxed by the register, to the quantity of 5201 pounds of tobacco. And it is
further Decreed, that the defendants John Chaires and Mark Benton be hence
dismissed.

(i) Attorney-General v. Downing, 1 Dick. 417; Nannock v. Horton, 7 Ves. 402;
Sibley v. Perry, 7 Ves. 534.—(j) William Clun's case, 10 Co. 128; Co. Litt. 144;
Brediman's case, 6 Co. 59.—(k) Co. Litt. 143; Brediman's case, 6 Co. 59; Saward
v. Anstey, 9 Com. Law Rep. 506; Rebecca Owings' case, 1 Bland, 206,
8 v.2