Chapter the fifteenth.
Of TITLE by PURCHASE, and first by ESCHEAT.
PURCHASE, perquiſitio, taken in it's largeſt and moſt extenſive ſenſe, is thus defined by Littleton[1]; the poſſeſſion of lands and tenements, which a man hath by his own act or agreement; and not by deſcent from any of his anceſtors or kindred. In this ſenſe it is contradiſtinguiſhed from acquiſition by right of blood, and includes every other method of coming to an eſtate, but merely that by inheritance; wherein the title is veſted in a perſon, not by his own act or agreement, but by the ſingle operation of law[2].
Purchase, indeed, in it's vulgar and confined acceptation, is applied only to ſuch acquiſitions of land, as are obtained by way of bargain and ſale, for money, or ſome other valuable conſideration. But this falls far ſhort of the legal idea of purchaſe: for, if I give land freely to another, he is in the eye of the law a purchaſor[3]; and falls within Littleton's definition, for he comes to the eſtate by his own agreement, that is, he conſents to the gift. A man who has his father's eſtate ſettled upon him in tail, before he is born, is alſo a purchaſor; for he takes quite another eſtate than the law of deſcents would have given him. Nay even if the anceſtor deviſes his eſtate to his heir at law by will, with other limitations or in any other ſhape than the courſe of deſcents would direct, ſuch heir ſhall take by purchaſe[4]. But if a man, ſeiſed in fee, deviſes his whole eſtate to his heir at law, ſo that the heir takes neither a greater nor a leſs eſtate by the deviſe than
