Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/123

 Ch. 7. annexed, becomes abolute, and wholly unconditional. So that, as oon as the grantee had any iue born, his etate was uppoed to become abolute, by the performance of the condition; at leat, for thee three purpoes: 1. To enable the tenant to aliene the land, and thereby to bar not only his own iue, but alo the donor of his interet in the reverion. 2. To ubject him to forfeit it for treaon: which he could not do, till iue born, longer than for his own life; left thereby the inheritance of the iue, and reverion of the donor, might have been defeated. 3. To empower him to charge the land with rents, commons, and certain other incumbrances, o as to bind his iue. And this was thought the more reaonable, becaue, by the birth of iue, the poibility of the donor's reverion was rendered more ditant and precarious: and his interet eems to have been the only one which the law, as it then tood, was olicitous to protect; without much regard to the right of ucceion intended to be veted in the iue. However, if the tenant did not in fact aliene the land, the coure of decent was not altered by this performance of the condition: for if the iue had afterwards died, and then the tenant, or original grantee, had died, without making any alienation; the land, by the terms of the donation, could decend to none but the heirs of his body, and therefore, in default of them, mut have reverted to the donor. For which reaon, in order to ubject the lands to the ordinary coure of decent, the donees of thee conditional fee-imples took care to aliene as oon as they had performed the condition by having iue; and afterwards re-purchaed the lands, which gave them a fee-imple abolute, that would decend to the heirs general, according to the coure of the common law. And thus tood the old law with regard to conditional fees: which things, ays ir Edward Coke, though they eem antient, are yet neceary to be known; as well for the declaring how the common law tood in uch caes, as for the ake of annuities, and uch like inheritances, as are not within the tatutes of entail, and therefore remain as at the common law. Rh