whereby to charge the defendant upon any special promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another person or to charge any person upon any agreement made upon consideration of marriage, or upon any contract for the sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or the making any lease thereof for a longer term than one year, or upon any agreement which is not to be performed within the space of one year from the making thereof, unless the promise or agreement upon which such action shall be brought, or some memorandum or note thereof shall be in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some other person by him thereunto lawfully autho

rized.

void.

II. Every gift, grant, or conveyance of lands, tene- Conveyances ments, hereditaments, goods or chattels, or of any rent, to defraud common, or profit out of the same, by writing or other- creditors wise, and every bond, suit, judgment or execution, had or made, and contrived of malice, fraud, covin, collusion or guile, to the intent or purpose to delay, binder, or defraud creditors of their just and lawful actions, suits, debts, accounts, damages, penalties, or forfeitures, or to defraud or deceive those who shall purchase the same lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any rent, profit, or commodity out of them, shall be from henceforth deemed and taken (only as against the person or persons, his, her, or their heirs, successors, executors, administrators or assigns, and every of them, whose debts, suits, demands, estates interests, by such guileful and covinous devices and practices, as is aforesaid, shall or might be in any wise disturbed, hindered, delayed or defrauded) to be clearly and utterly void, any pretence, colour, feigned consideration, expressing of use, or any other matter or thing, to the contrary notwithstanding. And moreover, if a conveyance be What convey of goods and chattels and be not on consideration ances deemdeemed valuable in law, it shall be taken to be fraudu- ed fraudulent lent within this act, unless the same be by will duly proved and recorded, or by deed in writing acknowledged or proved, if the same deed include lands also, in such manner as conveyances of land are by law di rected to be acknowledged or proved, or if it be of goods and chattels only, then acknowledged or proved by two witnesses in the general court, or court of the county wherein one of the parties live, within eight VOL. XII. V

fraudulent.

months after the execution thereof, or unless possession Loans when shall really and bona fide remain with the donee. And in like manner where any loan of goods and chattels shall be pretended to have been made to any person with whom, or those claiming under him, possession shall have remained by the space of five years without demand made, and pursued by due process at law on the part of the pretended lender, or where any reservation or limitation shall be pretended to have been made of a use or property, by way of condition, reversion, remainder, or otherwise, in goods and chattels, the possession whereof shall have remained in another as aforesaid, the same shall be taken as to the creditors and purchasers of the persons aforesaid, so remaining in possession, to be fraudulent within this act, and that the absolute property is with the possession, unless such loan, reservation, or limitation of use or property, were declared by will or by deed, in writing proved, and recorded as aforesaid.

Not to extend to bona fide

III. This act shall not extend to any estate or interest in any lands, goods or chattels, or any rents, comconveyances. mon or profit out of the same, which shall be upon good consideration, and bona fide, lawfully conveyed or assured to any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate.

Commence. ment of act.

IV. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the first day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven.

From Rev. Bills of 1779. ch. XXVII.

Widow may

mansion

CHAP. LXV.

An act concerning the dower and jointures of widows.

I. BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That a remain in widow after the death of her husband shall tarry in the house till dow mansion house of her husband and the plantation thereer assigned. to belonging, rent free, until her dower shall be assigned her. And if she be thereof in the mean time deforced, she shall have a vicontiel writ, in the nature of a

writ, de quarentina habenda, directed to the sheriff, whereupon such proceedings and speed shall be used as bath or might have been used on the said writ of quarentine.

Remedy, it

deforced.

11. Whosever shall deforce widows of their dowers Damages for of the lands whereof their husdauds died seized, or of deforcing wisuch mansion house or plantation, if the same widows dows of dow. shall after recover by plea; they that be convicted of er, such wrongful deforcement, shall yield damages to the same widows, that is to say, the value of the whole dower to them belonging, from the time of the death of their husbands unto the day that the said widows by judgment have recovered seizin of their dower. In a writ of dower called unde nihil habet, the-writ shall not abate by the exception of the tenant, because the demandant hath received her dower of another man before her writ purchased, unless he can shew that the dower so received was in satisfaction of her right of dower in the lands whereof she demands dower.

What excep ton's all not abate the writ

band, no bar

to widow.

III. In case where the husband being impleaded for Judgment by land by default, the woman after his death demanding defolt a her dower, shall be heard, and if it be alledged against gainst husher, that her husband lost the land whereof the dower is demanded by judgment, whereby she ought not to have dower, and then it be inquired by what judgment, and it be found that it was by default, whereupon the tenant must answer, then it behoveth the tenant to answer further, and to shew that he had right and hath in the aforesaid land, according to the form of the writ that the tenant before purchased against the husband. And if he can shew that the husband of such wife had no right in the lands, nor any other but he that holdeth them, the tenant shall go quit, and the wife shall recover nothing of her dower, which thing if he cannot shew, the wife shall recover her dower.

IV. And where sometime it chanceth that a woman Remedy, not having a right to demand dower, the heir being where the wiwithin age doth purchase a writ of dower against a dow is endow guardian, and the guardian endoweth the woman by ed to the pre judice of the favour, or maketh default, or by collusion defendeth heir within the plea so faintly, whereby the woman is awarded her age. dower in prejudice of the heir, it is provided, that the heir when he cometh to full age, shall have an action to demand the seizin of his ancestor against such a woman, like as he should have against any other deforcer.

default a gainst the widow,no bar

Yet so that the woman shall have her exception saved against the demandant, to shew that she had right to her dower, which if she can shew, she shall go quit, Judgment by and retain her dower, and if not, the heir shall recover his demand. In like manner the woman shall be aided, if the heir or any other do implead her for her dower, if she lose her dower by default, in which case the default shall not be so prejudicial to her, but that she shall recover her dower if she have right thereto; and she shall have this writ, "Command A. that justly, &c. he renWrit of dow. der to B. who was the wife of F. so much land, with the appurtenances, in C. which she claims to be her reasonable dower, or of her reasonable dower, and that What tenant the aforesaid A. deforceth her, &c." And to this writ may plead the tenant shall have his exception, to shew that she had no right to be endowed, which if he can verify, he shall go quit, if not, the woman shall recover the land whereof she was endowed before. Also, widows may bequeath the crop of their ground, as well of their dowers as of other their lands and tenements.

er.

Widow may bequeath crops

Forfeiture of dower.

V. But if a wife willingly leave her husband, and go away and continue with her adulterer, she shall be barred forever of action to demand her dower, that she ought to have of her husband's lands, if she be convict thereupon, except that her husband willingly, and without coercion, reconcile her, and suffer her to dwell with him, in which case she shall be restored to her action.

Jointure, in VI. Also, if any estate be conveyed by deed or will, lieu of dower either expressly or by averment, for the jointure of the wife, in lieu of her dower, to take effect in her own possession, immediately on the death of her husband, and to contiue during her life at the least, determinable by such acts only as would forfeit her dower at the common law, such conveyance shall bar her dower of the residue of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments, which at any time were her said husband's. But if the said conveyance were before the marriage, and during the infancy of the feme, or if it were made after marriage, in either case the widow may at her election wave such jointure, and demand her dower.

Defective

in lieu of

Vii. When any conveyance intended to be in lieu conveyances of dower shall through any defect fail to be a legal bar dower, effect thereto, and the widow availing herself of such defect, shall demand her dower, the estate and interest con

of.

veyed to such widow, with intention to bar her dower, shall thereupon cease and determine.

VIII. If a widow be lawfully expulsed, or evicted Widow evict ed of jointure from her jointure, or any part thereof, without any how recom. fraud or covin, by lawful entry or action, she shall be pensed. endowed of as much of the residue of her husband's lands, tenements, or hereditaments, whereof she was before dowable, as the same lands, tenements, or hereditaments, so evicted and expulsed, shall amount or extend unto.

IX. This act shall commence and be in force from Commence. and after the first day of January, one thousand seven ment of art. hundred and eighty-seven,

CHAP. LXVI.

An act for the preservation of the estates of ideots and lunatics.

From Rev.

Bills of 1779. ch. XXVIII.

Estates of

I. BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That the lands, tenements, and chattels, of ideots and luna- ideots and lu tics, shall be safely kept without waste and destruc- natics, how preserved. tion, and they and their household shall live, and be maintained competently with the profits of the same, and the residue, besides their sustentation, shall be kept for their use, to be delivered unto them when they come to right mind: And if they die in such estate, their lands shall be rendered to the right heirs, and their chattels distributed.

II. This act shall commence and be in force from Commenceand after the first day of January, one thousand seven ment of act hundred and eighty seven.