statutory provision the land was regranted to informant Jeake in the following year. 170 Beckford having completed purchase of the lands from Cotton brought an action of trespass and ejectment against Jeake for recovery of the lands in the Supreme Court in February, 1761. To the declaration defendant pleaded the previous judgment on the information and the subsequent grant made to defendant. In his replication plaintiff averred inter alia that at the time of the information and subsequently the lands were not vested in the "heirs or other representatives" of Sir Thomas Lynch. To the replication defendant demurred, and upon joinder in the demurrer the Supreme Court gave judgment for plaintiff Beckford. 171 The rationale of this judgment was that the judgment on the information did not conclude the heirs or grantees of Thomas King, the owners of the land by title on record at the time of the information. The acts only mentioned the owners and possessors of land at the time of forfeiture and not representatives of former owners, and a penal law tending to disenfranchise proprietors of land should not be construed to extend beyond its letter. 172 170 Case of Appellant, ibid., 168-73; Case o£ Respondent, ibid., 177-83. 171 Case of Appellant, ibid., 168-73. 172 Among the Hardwicke Papers {ibid., 193) is a statement that "on the tryal of the Ejectment, Doe on the Demise of Beckford against Jeake. The Supreme Court of Judicature gave Judgment for the Plaintiff for this single reason, that the Information, upon which the Defendants claim was founded being brought for the Lands in question as vested in the Heirs or other Representatives of Sir Thomas Lynch, the Judgment thereon could not conclude the Heirs or Grantees of Thomas King, who were plainly the Owners of the Land by title upon Record at the time of bringing the Information; That though it had been objected that the term Representatives used in the Information concluded the Devisee of Thomas King and his Grantee ratione tenurae, yet the Act of the Legislature mentioned only the Owners and possessors of Land at the time of forfeiture, and not Representatives of former Owners, and they neither would nor could extend tire construction of a penal Law tending to disfranchise Proprietors of Land beyond the Letter of the Law, nor could it be within the Spirit or intention of the Law to suffer such construction, for the intent of the Proclamation was to give notice not only of the Land but the Owner, and if the construction contended for was admitted, the greatest frauds might be practised, and any Gentleman in the Island might be stripped of his Estate by an Information brought against the original Patentee or some early Grantee whose name and family might be buried in oblivion upon a suggestion that the Quit rents were not yet paid, nor would it be consonant with Law or common justice to tell such owner he was the representative ratione tenura:, or to drive him to expensive litigations to avoid a judgment and patent founded on such an information. It was say'd on the other side, that at the time of filing the information the heir of Sir Thomas Lynch and the devisee of Thomas King was, as appears by the pleadings, identically the same person vizt. Lady Philadelphia Cotton, and therefore being impleaded as heir by the information she could now traverse it by setting up a right as Devisee of Thomas King, but this is begging the question, for she is not impleaded by name as heir, but is only concluded by the judgment as heir, and it would be a new doctrine to say that a verdict or Judgment should operate as an Estoppell from claiming or should bind the heir further than as heir of him to whom the estoppell was; It was also insisted that the judgment upon the information ought to be binding on her in every right, as she had notice as appears by the record in the liberty given her to traverse; but it is well known from the practice of the Court that those suggestions are entered on the roll at the