Watts

(after stating the fácts as above). [1] The appellant contends that the intention and express agreement of the parties cannot be shown by parol to change the essential nature of the instruments, and that a conveyance to secure a debt is a mortgage, and the stipulation of the parties cannot make it otherwise. But there can be no mortgage unless there is a debt to be secured thereby. “A debt, ‘either pre-existing or created at the time, is an essential requisite to a mortgage. When there is no debt and no’ loan/ it is impossible to say that an agreement to resell will change an absolute deed into a mortgage.” Jones on Mortgages, § 265. Here there was no debt. The relation of debtor and creditor did not exist. The undisputed evidence is that the appellant never at any time owed Syme and Mathews any sum whatever. It is true that the appellant signed promissory notes to the amount of $100,000; but they were not intended to be obligatory upon the maker, or ever to be paid unless the *588 appellant made a sale of the land. They were intended only to register the nature of the transaction, which, while it was in the contemplation of the parties only an option, was placed in the form of a…