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for interest detained after it is due, becomes, to all intents and purposes, part of the fum lent.

It is a question which fometimes occurs, how money borrowed in one country ought to be paid in another, where the relative value of the precious metals is not the fame. For example, suppose I borrow a hundred guineas in London, where each guinea is worth one and twenty fhillings, and meet my creditor in the East Indies, where a guinea is worth no more perhaps than nineteen, is it a fatisfaction of the debt to return a hundred guineas? or must I make up fo many times one and twenty fhillings? I fhould think the latter: for it must be prefumed, that my creditor, had he not lent me his guineas, would have difpofed of them in fuch a manner, as to have now had, in the place of them, fo many one and twenty fhillings, and the question fuppofes, that he neither intended, nor ought to be a fufferer, by parting with the poffeffion of his money to me.

When the relative value of coin is altered by an act of the state, if the alteration would have extended to the identical pieces which were lent, it is enough to return an equal number of pieces of the fame denomination, or their prefent value in any other. As if guineas were reduced by act of parliament to twenty fhillings, fo many twenty fhillings, as I borrowed guineas, would be a juft repayment. It would be otherwife, if the reduction was owing to a debasement of the coin; for then refpect ought to be had to the comparative value of the old guinea and the new,

Whoever borrows money is bound in confcience to repay it. This every man can fee; but every man cannot fee, or does not however reflect, that he is, in confequence, alfo bound to use the means neceffary to enable himself to repay it. "If he pay "the money when he has it, or has it to fpare, he does all that an honeft man can do," and all, he imagines, that is required of him, whilft the previ

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ous measures, which are neceffary to furnish him with the money, he makes no part of his care, nor obferves to be as much his duty as the other; fuch as felling a family feat, or a family eftate, contracting his plan of expence, laying down his equipage, reducing the number of his fervants, or any of those humiliating facrifices, which juftice requires of a man in debt, the moment he perceives that he has no reafonable profpect of paying his debts without them. An expectation, which depends upon the continuance of his own life, will not fatisfy an honeft man, if a better provifion be in his power: for it is a breach of faith to fubject a creditor, when we can help it, to the risk of our life, be the event what it will; that not being the security to which credit was given.

I know few subjects which have been more mifunderstood than the law which authorizes the imprifonment of infolvent debtors. It has been reprefented as a gratuitous cruelty, which contributed nothing to the reparation of the creditor's lofs, or to the advantage of the community. This prejudice arifes principally from confidering the fending of a debtor to jail, as an act of private fatisfaction to the creditor, instead of a public punishment. As an act of fatisfaction or revenge, it is always wrong in the motive, and often intemperate and undiftinguishing in the exercise. Confider it as a public punishment, founded upon the fame reason, and fubject to the fame rules, as other punishments; and the juftice of it, together with the degree to which it fhould be extended, and the objects upon whom it may be inflicted, will be apparent. There are frauds relating to infolvency, against which it is as neceffary to provide punishment, as for any public crimes whatever : as where a man gets your money into his poffeffion, and forthwith runs away with it; or, what is little better, fquanders it in vicious expences; or stakes it at the gaming table; in the alley; or upon wild ad

ventures

ventures in trade; or is confcious at the time he borrows it, that he can never repay it; or wilfully puts it out of his power by profufe living; or conceals his effects, or transfers them by collufion to another not to mention the obstinacy of fome debtors, who had rather rot in a jail, than deliver up their eftates; for, to fay the truth, the first abfurdity is in the law itself, which leaves it in a debtor's power to withhold any part of his property from the claim of his creditors. The only question is, whether the punishment be properly placed in the hands of an exafperated creditor; for which it may be faid, that these frauds are fo fubtile and verfatile, that nothing but a difcretionary power can overtake them; and that no difcretion is likely to be fo well informed, fo vigilant, or fo active, as that of the creditor.

It must be remembered, however, that the confinement of a debtor in jail is a punishment; and that every punishment fuppofes a crime. To purfue therefore, with the extremity of legal rigour, a fufferer, whom the fraud or failure of others, his own want of capacity, or the disappointments and mifcarriages to which all human affairs are fubject, have reduced to ruin, merely becaufe we are provoked by our lofs, and feek to relieve the pain we feel by that which we inflict, is repugnant not only to humanity, but to juftice; for it is to pervert a provifion of law, defigned for a different and a falutary purpose, to the gratification of private fpleen and refentment. Any alteration in these laws, which could diftinguish the degrees of guilt, or convert the fervice of the infolvent debtor to fome public profit, might be an improvement; but any confiderable mitigation of their rigour, under colour of relieving the poor, would increase their hardships. For whatever deprives the creditor of his power of coer

cion, deprives him of his fecurity; and as this muft add greatly to the difficulty of obtaining credit, the poor, efpecially the lower fort of tradefmen, are the first who would fuffer by fuch a regulation. As tradesmen must buy before they fell, you would exclude from trade two thirds of those who now carry it on, if none were enabled to enter into it without a capital fufficient for prompt payments. An advocate therefore for the interefts of this important clafs of the community will deem it more eligible, than one out of a thoufand fhould be fent to jail by his creditor, than that the nine hundred and ninety-nine fhould be ftraitened and embarraffed, and many of them lie idle, by the want of credit.

CHAP.

С НА Р. XI.

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CONTRACTS OF LABOUR.

SERVICE.

ERVICE in this country is, as it ought to be, voluntary, and by contract; and the mafter's authority extends no farther than the terms or equitable conftruction of the contract will justify.

The treatment of fervants, as to diet, difcipline, and accommodation, the kind and quantity of work to be required of them, the intermiffion, liberty, and indulgence to be allowed them, must be determined in a great measure by cuftom; for where the contract involves fo many particulars, the contracting parties exprefs a few perhaps of the principal, and by mutual understanding refer the reft to the known cuftom of the country in like cafes.

A fervant is not bound to obey the unlawful commands of his mafter; to minifter, for inftance, to his unlawful pleasures; or to aflift him in unlawful practices in his profeffion; as in fmuggling or adulterating the articles in which he deals. For the fervant is bound by nothing but his own promise; and the obligation of a promise extends not to things unlawful.

For the fame reason, the master's authority is no juftification of the fervant in doing wrong; for the fervant's own promife, upon which that authority is founded, would be none.

Clerks and apprentices ought to be employed entirely in the profeflion or trade which they are intended to learn. Inftruction is their hire, and to deprive them of the opportunities of inftruction, by

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