FORGERY. The falsely making or ma terially altering, with intent to defraud, any writing which, if genuine, might apparently be of legal efficacy or the foundation of a legal liability. 2 Bishop, Crim. Law, 432.
The fraudulent making and alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right. 4 Blackstone, Comm. 247.
Bishop, 2 Crim. Law, 432, has collected seven definitions of forgery. and justly remarks that the books abound in definitions. Coke says the term is "taken metaphorically from the smith, who beateth upon his anvil and forgeth what fashion and shape he will." Coke, 3d Inst. 169.
2. The making of a whole written instru ment in the name of another with a fraudu lent intent is undoubtedly a sufficient making; but a fraudulent insertion, alteration, or erasure, even of a letter, in any material part of the instrument, whereby a new operation is given to it, will amount to a forgery, 1 Strange, 18 ; 1 And. 10] ; 5 Esp. 100 ; 5 St•obb. So. C. 581 ; and this, although it be afterwards executed by a person ignorant of the deceit. 2 East, Pl. Cr. 855.
The fraudulent application of a true sig nature to a false instrument for which it was not intended, or vice versa, will also be a for gery. 11 Gratt. Va. 822 ; 1 Add. Penn. 44. For example, it is forgery in an individual who is requested to draw a will for a sick person in a particular way, instead of doing so, to insert legacies of his own head, and then procure the signature of such sick person to be affixed to the paper without revealing to him the legacies thus fraudu lently inserted. Noy, 101 ; F. Moore, 759,
760; Coke, 3d Inst. 170 ; 1 Hawkins, Pl. Cr. c. 70, s. 2; 2 Russell, Crimes, 318; Bacon, Abr. Forgery (A).
It has even been intimated by Lord Ellen borough that a party who makes a copy of a receipt and adds to such copy material words not in the original, and then offers it in evi dence on the ground that the original baa been lost, may be prosecuted for forgery. 5 Esp. 100.
3. It is a sufficient making where, in the writing, the party assumes the name and character of a person in existence. 2 Rus sell, Crimes, 327. But the adoption of a false description and addition where a false name If the demandant claims the inheritance as an estate-tail which ought. to come to him I by descent from some ancestor to whom it was first given, his remedy is by a writ of formedon in the descender. Stearns, Real Act. 322.
It must have been brought within twenty years from the death of the ancestor who was disseiaed. 21 Jac. I. c. 16 •' 3 Brod. & B. 217; 6 East, 83 ; 4 Term, 300 ; 5 Barnew. & Ald. ; 2 Sharswood, Blackst. Comm. 193, n.