his creditors had a great deal of reason to be satisfied with his just dealing with them; but is every man bound thus to strip himself naked? Perhaps this man, at the same time, had a family to maintain; and had he no debt of justice to them, but to beg his household goods back of them for his poor family? and would he not have fared as well, if he had offered his creditors ten shillings in the pound, and took all the rest upon himself? and then he had reserved to himself sufficient to have supported him in any new undertaking.

The answer to this is short and plain, and no debtor can be at a loss to know his way in it; for, otherwise, people may make difficulties where there are none; the observing the strict rules of justice and honesty will chalk out his way for him.

The man being deficient in stock, and his estate run out to a 1000l. worse than nothing by his losses &c., it is evident all he has left is the proper estate of his creditors, and he has no right to one shilling of it; he owes it them; it is a just debt to them; and he ought to discharge it fairly, by giving up all into their hands, or, at least, to offer to do so.

But to put the case upon a new foot; as he is obliged to make an offer, as above, to put all his effects, books, and goods, into their power, so he may add an alternative to them thus, viz., that if, on the other hand, they do not think proper to take the trouble, or run the risk, of collecting the debts, and selling the goods, which may be difficult; if they will leave it to him to do it, he will undertake to pay them shillings in the pound, and stand to the hazard both of debts and goods.

Having thus offered the creditors their choice, if they accept the proposal of a certain sum, as sometimes I know they have chosen to do, rather than to have the trouble of making assignees, and to run

the hazard of the debts, when put into lawyers' hands to collect, and of the goods, to sell them by appraisement; if, I say, they choose this, and offer to discharge the debtor upon payment, suppose it be of ten or twelve shillings in the pound, in money, within a certain time, or on giving security for the payment; then, indeed, the debtor is discharged in conscience, and may lawfully and honestly take the remainder as a gift given him by his creditors for undertaking their business, or securing the remainder of their debt to them.

But without putting this into the creditors' choice, it is a force upon them to offer them anything less than the utmost farthing that he is able to pay; and, particularly, if he pretends to make an offer as if it was his utmost, and, as is usual, makes protestations that it is the most he is able to pay (for it must be remembered, that every offer of a composition is a kind of protestation that the debtor is not able to pay any more); and if his effects will produce more, he is then a cheat, and acts like one that stands at bay with his creditors; makes an offer, and if the creditors do not think fit to accept of it, as good as tells them they must take what methods they please to get more; that is to say, he bids open defiance to their statutes and commissions of bankrupt, and any other proceedings; like a town besieged, which offers to capitulate and to yield upon such articles; which implies, that if those articles are not accepted, the garrison will defend themselves to the last extremity, and do all the mischief to the assailants that they can.

Now this in a garrison town, I say, may be lawful and fair; but in a debtor to his creditor, it is quite another thing; for, as I have said, the debtor has no property in the effects which he has in his hands; they are the goods and estate of the creditor; and

to hold out against the creditor, keep his estate by violence, and make him accept of a small part of it, when the debtor has a larger part in his power, and is able to give it, this is not honest and conscientious; but it is still worse to do this, and at the same time to declare that it is the utmost the debtor can do; because it is not true, and is adding falsehood to the other injustice.

Thus, I think, I have stated the case clearly for the conduct of the debtor; and, indeed, this way of laying all before the creditors, and putting it into their choice, seems a very happy method for the comfort of the debtor, cast down and dejected with the weight of his circumstances; and, it may be, with the reproaches of his own conscience too, that he has not done honestly in running out the effects of his creditors, and making other families suffer by him, and, perhaps, poor families too; I say, this way of giving up all, with an honest and sincere desire to make all the satisfaction he is able to his creditors, greatly heals the breach in his peace, which his circumstances had made before; for, by now doing all that is in his power, he makes all possible amends for what is past; I mean, as to men ; and they are induced, by this open frank usage, to give him the reward of his honesty, and freely forgive him the rest of the debt.

In short, if the debtor is able to pay one shilling more than he offers, it is a cheat, a palpable fraud, and of so much he actually robs his creditor; but in a surrender the case is altered in all parts; the debtor says to his creditors, Gentlemen, there is a full and faithful account of all I have left; it is your own, and there it is; I am ready to put it into your hands, or into the hands of whomsoever you shall appoint to receive it, and to lie at your mercy. This is all the man is able to do, and therefore is so far

honest; whether the methods that reduced him were honest, or no, that's a question by itself. If, on this surrender, he finds the creditors desirous rather to have it digested into a composition, and that they will voluntarily come into such a proposal, then, as above, they being judges of the equity of the composition, and of what ability the debtor is to perform it; and, above all, of what he may or may not gain by it, if they accept of such a composition, instead of the surrender of his effects, then the case alters entirely, and the debtor is acquitted in conscience, because the creditors had a fair choice, and the composition is rather their proposal to the debtor, than the debtor's proposal to them.

Thus, I think, I have stated the case of justice and conscience on the debtor's behalf, and cleared up his way in case of a necessity to stop trading, that he may break without wounding his conscience as well as his fortunes; and he that thinks fit to act thus, will come off with the reputation of an honest man, and will have the favour of his creditors to begin again, with whatever he may have as to stock; and sometimes that favour is better to him than a stock, and has been the raising of many a broken tradesman; so that his latter end has been better than his beginning.

CHAP. XVI.

Some brief heads of the statute passed Anno 5 Geo. II. in relation to bankrupts, so far as it behoves a complete tradesman to know speculatively; referring to the act itself for a more practical knowledge of it.

THIS chapter we conceive to be of no small importance to a tradesman, and shall therefore insert it here; with due reference, as we have said, to the act itself in such cases as require a more than speculative knowledge of it.

In the first place, then, the act requires,

That all persons who have become bankrupts since 14th May, 1729, shall surrender themselves, within forty-two days' notice, to the commissioners of bankrupt;

And submit to be examined, on oath; or, if quaker, on affirmation;

And truly discover and deliver up all their effects, real and personal, books, papers, writings, transfers, assignments, or other dealings, or accounts of dealings whence any profit or interest whatsoever may accrue to them, before or after the issuing of the commission (the necessary wearing apparel of him, his wife and children, only excepted), except only such part of his effects as shall have been, bona fide, before sold in the way of his trade, and except such sums as shall have been laid out in the ordinary expense of his family.

That any wilful defaults or omission, in not surrendering and submitting to be examined, or in embezzling goods to the value of 201., shall, on con