A TREATISE ON THE EQUITABLE DOCTRINE OF THE CONVERSION OF PROPERTY. By J. H. LEIGH, AND R. DALZELL, Esons. OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTERS AT LAW. LONDON: PRINTED BY A. STRAHAN, LAW-FRINTER TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY; FOR JOSEPH BUTTERWORTH AND SON, LAW BOOKSELLERS, 1825. PREFACE. AMONGST the various treatises which have appeared on detached heads of law, none seem to have embraced the present subject, although of increasing importance to the Public, and not without some difficulty to the Profession. In a State in which the Law applicable to real and personal Property is extremely different, when money is directed to be laid out in land, or land to be sold for the purposes of distribution, these intentions might be considerably embarrassed, or, possibly, never carried into execution, unless the rigour with which the Common Law regards these two species of Property, were relieved by an equity deducible from the principles of moral Justice; but as the decisions on this branch of equity are widely diffused throughout the Chancery Reports, the distinctions between the cases rather minute, and the principles on which the distinctions are founded, seldom occur in any Treatise on Law, never in any connected point of view, a work treating exclusively on the subject might not be considered unacceptable to the Profession. ATZATZ6) Although these are only reasons why such a work should be undertaken, they are none why the authors themselves, should have undertaken it: diligence in collecting the cases from a long series of reports-in deducing the abstract principles on which they are decided and classifying them so as to give consistence and regularity to the whole -are their only merits, if such that can be called, which is but an indispensable duty; and while it is hoped that no deductions have been advanced, which the facts of the cases, and the decisions upon them, do not fully authorize, it may be confidently asserted, that no case has been purposely withheld, as contradictory to any proposition stated in the following pages. How far success has crowned these exertions, it is for that Profession to which this work is, with the utmost deference and apprehension, now offered, to decide, from whose accuracy and discernment, though neither any imperfections, nor the causes of them can remain unperceived, yet, from whose candour and liberality, some indulgence for them may be expected. Means by which a Conversion of Property may be effected.— the #by will, is considered to commence. |