Still, however,
being on the subject, I cannot help adding a word, in answer to the
objection which you say is raised on the words 'the estate,' instead of
'my estate.' It has long been confessed in the courts, that the
first decision, that a devise of lands to a person without words
of inheritance, should carry an estate for life only, was an absurd
decision, founded on feudal principles, after feudal ideas had long been
lost by the unlettered writers of their own wills: and it has often been
said, that were the matter to begin again, it should be decided that
such a devise should carry a fee simple, as every body is sensible
testators intend, by these expressions. The courts, therefore,
circumscribe the authority of this chain of decisions, all hanging on
the first link, as much as possible; and they avail themselves of every
possible circumstance which may render any new case unlike the old one,
and authorize them to conform their judgments to common sense, and the
will of the testator. Hence they decide, that in a devise of 'my estate
at M.' to such a one, without words of inheritance, the word estate is
descriptive of the duration of the interest bequeathed, as well as its
locality.
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