A prosecution by the party grieved was not within the restraint of the statute ; but now, by the 3 and 4 Wm. IV. c. 42, s. 3, all actions for penalties, damages, or sums of money given to the party grieved by any statute now or hereafter to be in force must be brought within two years after the cause of such actions or suits. It is provided that nothing in that section should extend to actions the time for bringing which is especially limited by any statute. The saving in that act in the case of the disability of the plaintiff and the absence of the defendant beyond seas, and also the limitation as to further proceedings after judgment or outlawry reversed, apply to actions by the party grieved.
By the 24 Geo. II. c. 44, s. 1, actions against justices of the peace and con stables or others acting in obedience to their warrants are limited to six calendar months.
There is no time limited by any statute for indictments for felonies and other misdemeanours when there is no forfei ture to the queen or to the prosecutor, but the acts of general pardon which have been passed from time to time have the effect of limitations. The last of such acts was the 20 Geo. II. c. 52.
IV. Of the exceptions to the operation of the Statutes of Limitation.
The exceptions in the several statutes of limitation may be stated generally to comprehend infants and other persons under disabilities.
In cases of express trust, the statutes of limitation have no application as be tween trustee and cestuy pee trust ; and in cases of fraud they operate only from the time of the discovery of the fraud. If a debtor creates by his will a trust of real or personal estate for the payment of his debts, such a trust wilt prevent the statutes from operating upon a debt not barred at the time of the creation of the trust, that is, from the death of the testator.
In general, in personal actions the Statutes of Limitation do not run against the estate of a person who has died in testate, in respect of claims accrued after his death, until the appointment of an administrator, though the rule is altered by 3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 27, s. 6, as to
rights to chattel interests in land, and apparently also as to money charges on land, besides arrears of dower and arrears of rent or interest of money charged on land. And if there be no personal repre sentative against whom actions may be brought, the rights of claimants against the deceased's estate are unaffected by the statutes, as no lathes can be attributed to them until an administrator is ap pointed. (5 B. and Ald., 204.) A charity is never considered in equity as absolutely barred by the statutes, or by any rule of limitation analogous to them ; but the court takes notice of a long adverse possession in considering the effect and construction of instruments under which claims are set up on lin behalf. (2 J. and W., 321.) By the 3 and 4 William IV. c. 27, s. 43, persons claiming tithes, legacies, or any other property for the recovery of which an action or suit at law or in equity might have been brought, cannot bring a snit or other proceeding in any spiritual court for the same but within the period during which they might have brought their action at law or suit in equity. Also, by the 27 Geo. III. c. 44, a. 1, suits in the Ecclesiastical Court for defamatory words must be commenced within six calendar months, and (sect. 2) suits for fornication, incontinence, or for striking or brawling in a church or churchyard, must be brought within eight calendar months after the commission of the offence. But, except in these cases, it does not appear that the Statutes of Limitation have any application to suits in the Ecclesiastical or Admiralty Courts.
The Statutes of Limitation must in general be pleaded positively by the defendant in any action at law, who wishes to take advantage of them, and it has been held in equity that unless the defendant claims the benefit of the sta tutes by plea or answer, he cannot insist upon them in bar of the plaintiff's de mand. (mitt, 277.) (Bacon, Ab., art. Limitation ;' Chitty's Statutes ; and Report of Real Property Commissioners.)