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where a guinea is worth no more perhaps than nineteen, is it a fatisfaction of the debt to return a hundred guineas? or muft I make up fo many times one and twenty fhillings? I fhould think the latter for it must be presumed, that my creditor, had he not lent me his guineas, would have disposed of them in such a manner, as to have now had, in the place of them, fo many one and twenty fhillings; and the queftion supposes, that he neither intended, nor ought to be a fufferer, by parting with the poffeffion of his money to me.

in

any

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 present value other. As if guineas were reduced by act of parliament to twenty fhillings, fo many twenty shillings, as I borrowed guineas, would be a just repayment. It would be otherwise, if the reduction was owing to a debasement of the coin; for then respect ought to be had to the comparative value of the old guinea and the

new.

Whoever borrows money is bound in conscience to repay it. This every man can see;

VOL. I.

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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

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"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 previous 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 estate, contracting his plan of expence, laying down his equipage, reducing the number of his fervants, or any of thofe humiliating facrifices, which juftice requires of a man in debt, the moment he perceives that he has no reasonable prospect of paying his debts without them. An expectation, which depends upon the continuance of his own life, will not fatisfy an honest 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 fubjects which have been more mifunderstood than the law which authorizes the imprisonment of infolvent debtors. It has been

repre

represented 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 exercife. 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 insolvency, 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 ftakes it at the gaming table; in the alley; or upon wild adventures in trade; or is conscious 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

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the obftinacy of fome debtors, who had rather rot in a jail, than deliver up their eftates; for, to say the truth, the first absurdity 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 queftion is, whether the punishment be properly placed in the hands of an exasperated 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 so well informed, so 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 pursue 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 because we are provoked by our loss, and seek to relieve the pain we feel by that which we inflict, is repugnant not only to humanity, but to justice; for it is to pervert a provision of law, defigned for a different and a falutary purpose, to the gratification of private spleen and resent

ment.

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ment. Any alteration in these laws, which could diftinguifh the degrees of guilt, or convert the fervice of the infolvent debtor to fome public profit, might be an improvement; but confiderable mitigation of their rigour, under colour of relieving the poor, would increase their hardships. For whatever deprives the creditor of his power of coercion, deprives him of his fecurity and as this must add greatly to the difficulty of obtaining credit, the poor, efpecially the lower fort of tradesmen, are the first who would fuffer by such a regulation. As tradesmen must buy before they fell, you would exclude from trade two thirds of thofe who now carry it on, if none were enabled to enter into it without a capital fufficient for prompt payAn advocate therefore for the interests of this important class of the community, will deem it more eligible, that one out of a thoufand should be fent to jail by his creditor, than that the nine hundred and ninety-nine should be ftraitened, and embarraffed, and many of them lie idle, by the want of credit.

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