Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/260

 244 ancetor, ufficient to a anwer the charge ; whether he remains in poeion, or hath aliened it before action brought : which ufficient etate is in law called aets; from the French word, allez, enough. Therefore if a man covenants, for himelf and his heirs, to keep my houe in repair, I can then (and then only) compel his heir to perform this covenant, when he has an etate ufficient for this purpoe, or aets, by decent from the covenantor: for though the covenant decends to the heir, whether he inherits any etate or no, it lies dormant, and is not compulory, until he has aets by decent.

is the legal ignification of the word perquiitio, or purchae; and in this ene it includes the five following methods of acquiring a title to etates: 1. Echeat. 2. Occupancy. 3. Precription. 4. Forfeiture. 5. Alienation. Of all thee in their order.

I., we may remember , was one of the fruits and conequences of feodal tenure. The word itelf is originally French or Norman, in which language it ignifies chance or accident; and with us denotes an obtruction of the coure of decent, and a conequent determination of the tenure, by ome unforeeen contingency: in which cae the land naturally reults back, by a kind of reverion, to the original, grantor or lord of the fee.

therefore being a title frequently veted in the lord by inheritance, as being the fruit of a igniory to which he was intitled by decent, (for which reaon the lands echeating hall attend the igniory, and be inheritable by uch only of his heirs as are capable of inheriting the other ) it may eem in uch caes to fall more properly under the former general head of acquiring title to etates, viz. by decent, (being veted in him by act of Rh