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52 TESSIER v. WYSE.
of the real estate, in like manner as if the heirs were of full age,
without allowing the parol to demur. In this respect this act of
Assembly has made a most important and valuable change in the
law in favour of creditors; and this is indeed the only material
alteration which it has made in the pre-existing law.
Owing to some strange mistake as to the operation of what ap-
pears to be the very clear and unambiguous language of the statute
of 1732, a notion appears to have been entertained by a few, and
for some time, that as it was only under this act of Assembly, that
the real estate of a deceased debtor could be sold for the payment
of his debts; and that as its provisions applied only to infant heirs;
that, therefore, there was no method by which a simple contract
creditor could obtain satisfaction by a sale of his deceased debtor's
real estate in the hands of his adult heirs. (I) To remove all mis-
apprehension of the law, in this particular alone, it was in relation
to this matter specially declared, 'That the provisions of the fifth
section of the said act (1785, ch. 72,) and of the several acts sup-
plementary thereto, in relation to the sales of real estate, be ex-
tended to defendants of full age.' (m) But the legislative enact-
ment thus extended was manifestly made, as has been shewn, for
the benefit of creditors; and therefore, if its language could be
deemed ambiguous, certainly it could not be so construed as to
curtail or embarrass their rights. And as it has been shewn, that
there being assets in the hands of the personal representative could
not prevent a specialty creditor from enforcing payment from the
heir, who was bound to the extent of assets descended; and that
there was nothing in the act, thus extended, which could have been
intended to diminish that legal right of specialty creditors, or to
circumscribe its operation in favour of all creditors, in a Court of
Chancery, since the adoption of the statute of 1732; it necessarily
follows, that, by having its provisions extended to defendants of
full age, whatever of doubt or misapprehension may have been re-
moved, no alteration whatever can have been made in the law, in
this, or in any other respect, prejudicial to the interests of creditors.
Before we take leave of this subject, it may be well to advert to
the ease where there is no heir or devisee of the deceased, and the
real estate of the deceased debtor reverts by escheat to the state—
although in England and in Maryland, the state, upon the princi-
ples of the feudal system, took by escheat clear of the claims of
(I) Tyson v. Hollingsworth, 2 Bland, 327, note.—(m) 1818, ch. 193,s. 2.
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