As a general rule a sealed instrument is binding and enforceable although no consideration is mentioned in it and even though there is none in fact. In Cooch vs. Goodman,9 the Court said: "That a covenant, being under seal, does not by law require any consideration to support it; and though an illegal consideration may be shown, and will vitiate it, and if a consideration be stated on the face of a deed a different one may be proved in order to raise a legal defense, yet a mere failure of consideration which once existed may have no more effect than a total want of consideration in the first instance." It is generally said that the reason for this rule is that the seal imports a consideration and that the party is estopped to deny it.10 As a matter of fact, however, sealed instruments existed prior to the incorporation into English law of the principle that a contract required a consideration to support it. The more correct statement of the law would therefore be that a sealed instrument does not require a consideration.

6 Wolford vs. Powers, 85 Ind. 301; Shepard vs. Rhodes, 7 R. I., 470. 7 McArtee vs. Engart, 13 I11., 242; Cathcart vs. Robinson, 5 Peters 264.

8 Hough vs. Hunt, 2 Ohio, 295;

Randolph vs. Quidnick Co.,

135 U. S., 45; Matthews vs.

Reinhardt, 149 I11., 645; 37

N. E. 85. 9 Cooch vs. Goodman, 2 Q. B. 580. 10 Van Valkenburgh vs. Smith, 60

Maine, 87.

Equity, here, as elsewhere, "follows the law," and will not relieve against a sealed instrument on the sole ground that it is without consideration.11 Equity, however, will not aid in the enforcement of a sealed instrument without a consideration, with any of its special remedies.12