SEQUESTRATION, in chancery, is a commission usually directed to seven persons therein named, empowering them to seize the defendant's personal estate, and the profits of his real, and to detain them, subject to the order of the court. It issues on the return of the serjeant
at arms, wherein it is certified, that the defendant had sequestered himself.
Sequestrations were first introduced by Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; before which the court found some difficulty in enforcing its process and decrees; and they do not seem to be in the nature of process to bring in the defendant, but only intended to enforce the performance of the court's decree.
A sequestration is also made, in London, upon an action of debt; the course of proceeding in which case is this: The action being entered, the officer goes to the defendant's shop or warehouse, when no person is there, and takes a padlock, and hangs it on the door, uttering these words: "I do sequester this warehouse, and the goods and merchandise therein, of the defendant in this action, to the use of the plaintiff," &c. after which he sets on his seal, and makes a return of the sequestration in the compt; and four days being passed after the return made, the plaintiff may, at the next court, have judgment to open the shop or warehouse, and to have the goods appraised by two freemen, who are to be sworn at the next court held for that compt; and then the serjeant puts his hand to the bill of appraisement, and the court grants judgment thereon; but yet the defendant may put in bail before satisfaction, and by that means dissolve the sequestration; and after satisfaction, may put in bail to disprove the debt, &c.
In the time of the civil wars, sequestration was used for a seizing of the estates of delinquents for the use of the commonwealth.