VENDOR AND VENDEE   735

ants a messuage and workshops. Between the date of the contract and the time fixed for completion the buildings purchased were injured by fire. The vendors had before the contract insured the buildings against fire, but there was not in the contract any mention of this fact or of the policy. The Plaintiffs brought an action to establish their right to a sum received by the vendors from the insurance office, or to have it applied in or towards reinstating the buildings injured. The Master of the Rolls decided against their claim, and from this decision the Plaintiffs appealed. * * *

BRETT, L. J : For a reason which will presently appear, viz., the different opinion of Lord Justice James, I give with some fear the result of the, I must say, very clear opinion which I have in this case.

This action is brought by the Plaintiffs against the Defendants to recover money which is in the hands of the Defendants; and, therefore, if the action had been brought at Common Law, it would have been an action for money had and received. That action was always treated at Common Law as being founded upon equity, and therefore it seems to me that the decision in this case, whatever it ought to be, would be the same whether it should be considered to be a decision at Common Law or in Equity.

It seems to me that the question raised between the Plaintiffs and the Defendants calls upon us to consider, first of all, the nature of a policy of fire insurance; and, secondly, what was the relation with regard to the policy and to the property between the Plain-tiffs and the Defendants in this case. Now, in my judgment, the subject-matter of the contract of insurance is money, and money only. The subject-matter of insurance is a different thing from the subject-matter of the contract of insurance. The subject-matter of insurance may be a house or other premises in a fire policy, or may be a ship or goods in a marine policy. These are the subject-matter of insurance, but the subject-matter of the contract is money, and money only. The only result of the policy, if an accident which is within the insurance happens, is a payment of money. It is true that under certain circumstances in a fire policy there may be an option to spend the money in rebuilding the premises, but that does not alter the fact that the only liability of the insurance company is to pay money. The contract, therefore, is a con-tract with regard to the payment of money, and it is a contract made between two persons, and two persons only, as a contract.

In this case there was a contract of insurance made between the Defendants and the insurance company. That contract was made by the Defendants, not on behalf of any undisclosed principal, not on behalf of any one interested other than themselves. The con-tract was made by the Defendants solely and entirely on their own behalf, and at a time when they had no relation of any kind with the Plaintiffs. It was a personal contract between the Defendants