Page:An Essay on a Registry for Titles of Lands - Asgill (1698).djvu/17

 Use into a Possession, a Bargain and Sale became a compleat Conveyance without any other Ceremony: And the same Parliament forseeing that this Bargain and Sale so perfected might become a Clandestine Conveyance, to be executed any where, did intend to provide against it, by making a Short Statute the same Sessions for that purpose, called The Statute for En­rollments, by which all Conveyances of Inheritance of Freehold, which pass by Bargain and Sale only, are to be Enroll'd within six Months after the Date, that Purchasers may have Notice thereof from the Record.

But of late years the Lawyers have topt their Inventions upon these two Statutes. For, First, They make a Bargain and Sale for a Term only, (now generally called a Lease for a Year) and which is not within the Statute of Enrollments, and by this the Lessee gains a Use at Common-Law, and a Possession by the Statute of Uses; which makes him capable of taking a Release of the Reversion at Common Law, and then they make a Release to him and his Heirs accordingly. Which two Deeds make him one perfect Conveyance, and so by putting the Common-Law at both Ends, and the Statute of Uses in the Middle, the Statute for Enrollments