Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/258

 242 he would have done without it, he hall be adjudged to take by decent, even though it be charged with incumbrances ; for the benefit of creditors, and others, who have demands on the etate of the ancetor. If a remainder be limited to the heirs of Sempronius, here Sempronius himelf takes nothing; but, if he dies during the continuance of the particular etate, his heirs hall take as purchaors. But, if an etate be made to A for life, remainder to his right heirs in fee, his heirs hall take by decent: for it is an antient rule of law, that wherever the ancetor takes an etate for life, the heir cannot by the ame conveyance take an etate in fee by purchae, but only by decent. And, if A dies before entry, till his heir hall take by decent, and not by purchae; for, where the heir takes any thing that might have veted in the ancetor, he takes by way of decent. The ancetor, during his life, beareth in himelf all his heirs ; and therefore, when once he is or might have been eied of the land, the inheritance o limited to his heirs vets in the ancetor himelf: and the word "heirs" in this cae is not eteemed a word of purchae, but a word of limitation, enuring o as to encreae the etate of the ancetor from a tenancy for life to a fee-imple. And, had it been otherwie, had the heir (who is uncertain till the death of the ancetor) been allowed to take as a purchaor originally nominated in the deed, as mut have been the cae if the remainder had been exprely limited to Matthew or Thomas by name; then, in the times of trict feodal tenure, the lord would have been defrauded by uch a limitation of the fruits of his igniory, ariing from a decent to the heir.

we call purchae, perquiitio, the feudits call conquet, conquaetus, or conquiitio : both denoting any means of acquiring an etate out of the common coure of inheritance. And this is till the proper phrae in the law of Scotland ; as it was among Rh