like, without being impeached, or called to account, for the ſame. 2. That the wife of the tenant in tail ſhall have her dower, or thirds, of the eſtate-tail. 3. That the huſband of a female tenant in tail may be tenant by the curteſy of the eſtate-tail. 4. That an eſtate-tail may be barred, or deſtroyed, by a fine, by a common recovery, or by lineal warranty deſcending with aſſets to the heir. All which will hereafter be explained at large.
Thus much for the nature of eſtates-tail: the eſtabliſhment of which family law (as it is properly ſtiled by Pigott[1]) occaſioned infinite difficulties and diſputes[2]. Children grew diſobedient when they knew they could not be ſet aſide: farmers were ouſted of their leaſes made by tenants in tail; for, if ſuch leaſes had been valid, then under colour of long leaſes the iſſue might have been virtually diſinherited: creditors were defrauded of their debts; for, if tenant in tail could have charged his eſtate with their payment, he might alſo have defeated his iſſue, by mortgaging it for as much as it was worth: innumerable latent entails were produced to deprive purchaſers of the lands they had fairly bought; of ſuits in conſequence of which our antient books are full: and treaſons were encouraged; as eſtates-tail were not liable to forfeiture, longer than for the tenant's life. So that they were juſtly branded, as the fource of new conventions, and miſchiefs unknown to the common law; and almoſt univerſally conſidered as the common grievance of the realm[3]. But, as the nobility were always fond of this ſtatute, becauſe it preſerved their family eſtates from forfeiture, there was little hopes of procuring a repeal by the legiſlature; and therefore, by the connivance of an adive and politic prince, a method was deviſed to evade it.
About two hundred years intervened between the making of the ſtatute de donis, and the application of common recoveries to this intent, in the twelfth year of Edward IV: which were then openly declared by the judges to be a ſufficient bar of an eſtate-
