[A] By "Warranty," is meant the clause with which deeds of feoffment formerly concluded, and by which the feoffor agreed that he and his heirs would "warrant, acquit, and forever defend the feoffee and his heirs against all persons." This old form has long been obsolete; and may be considered to have been, by two late statutes, abolished. In this story an heir is represented as conveying away his expectancy; and the author has received an obliging communication on the subject, from one of the greatest conveyancers who ever lived--Mr. Preston--to the following effect. "The rule of law is--_Qui non habet, ille non dat: nemo potest plus juris in alium transferre, quam ipse habet._ Therefore a grant by an expectant heir, _simpliciter_, is void. But the doctrine of _estoppels_ (a 'cunning learning,' says Lord Coke) affords exceptions to this general rule." A feoffment with warranty binds an heir, however, not by estoppel, but by _rebutter_, "in order to avoid circuity of action, which is not favored by the law."--(Co. Litt. 265 a.) He might be estopped by a lease for years, and by matter of record--or by fine and recovery, before those methods of assurance were abolished; but a conveyance by Lease and Release would not bind the heir, on the subsequent descent of the estate: for he had _no right at all_ at the time of the release, made, but that once in the ancestor; after whose decease the heir may enter in to the land against his own release.--(Co. Litt. 265 a.) "The late vice-chancellor, Sir John Leach," says Mr. Preston, "once decided that a release _did_ operate as an estoppel, in conformity with my argument before him; but Lord Lyndhurst on appeal, contrary to his own first impression, on Sir Edward Sugden's handing up to him my own Book on Conveyancing, as a _contre projet_ to my attempt to support the vice-chancellor's decision, overruled that decision." CHAPTER V.