debtors into surrenders, and then trick them into prisons, and refuse their discharges: and for this end I name these things. But that which clears up the thing to me is, to what end should the creditors or commissioners deny the man his discharge? If by delaying it they could hope for further discovery, there was something to be said for it; but the debtor is foreclosed in that by his oath, and the penalty of felony on an imperfect surrender. an answer; that men will be encouraged to run to the last, is just arguing against fact. It is plain this act takes all possible care to encourage them to surrender in time by an encouragement of 5 per cent., and none if they do not pay 8s. per pound. It is as plain men held out to the last gasp before by the terrors of ill-usage they expected if they fell. As to people being always kind when debtors offer high, there are such innumerable instances of the contrary that I refer them to practice, particularly of a late citizen and draper, If they can discover anything he has reserved, who perished in gaol, and, as some say, of mere though after the discharge, he forfeits the liberty want, under the severity of a statute; when one they gave him, and his life too. To what purship brought home effects for him but a few days pose, then, can they deny the certificate? It after his death which, added to what they had must be mere naked malice and ungrounded prebefore, was sufficient to pay all his debts and 5s.judice; and I believe most commissioners will be per pound over; and yet they were so far from not very forward to show themselves to my Lord compassionate to him that they would neither Keeper in that, or to run the risk of his lordship's supply him food or physic, but let him die under their commission mercy. I could give innumerable instances of the like trade lenity sufficient to warn debtors from throwing themselves upon the mercy of their creditors; but it is too obvious to want any illustration. The remaining question is, what must the debtor do now to obtain the justice of this law at the hands of his creditors? The answer to this is short and direct. 1. Be very plain, genuine, and sincere on your part, and, making no reserves or hesitations, give such evident demonstrations of an untainted integrity, that no creditor or cominissioner, without blushing, can have the least jealousy, or the least shadow of suspicion, that the worst enemy cannot have the face to deny you the certificate. There is something in truth, something in native honesty, so just, so genuine, so natural, and so free, that even malice itself submits to the power of it, and envy is ashamed to appear against it. 2. If such a behaviour gives you no advantage with mercenary bribed commissioners, and it should be your misfortune to meet with such, depend upon it it will stand your friend with my Lord Keeper; the power of truth will prevail there, and honesty will be too conspicuous not to be discovered by a judge so impartial and so penetrating as his lordship is allowed to be by men of all parties. I know it is recommended by some people to fly to politic methods, and make, as they call it, sure work with them: these are such as follow. 1. To those who are already bankrupt, and who are left to their liberty whether they will come in or no, that they should state to the creditors what they are able to surrender, and capitulate with them to consent to their discharge, or not agree to surrender. 2. To those hereafter who are obliged to come in upon pain of death, to secure all their effects possible at the first rupture, and then make conditions with the commissioners and creditors during the thirty days, which conditions, if they will accept, they are discharged of course; if not, they have thirty days to prepare to be gone in. As to these things, I confess, if commissioners and creditors appear refractory and scrupulous, and refuse men their liberty after fair surrenders, it will drive people to such things, and more that || censure. They cannot put him off here with the suggestion that they do not believe him, and that he must think of a further discovery; for a further discovery is his destruction, and lies upon them to find out and detect him in, not for him to discover. I cannot omit to examine here what may entitle the bankrupt to the honour of the penalty of this act, I mean the gallows; and I think it is necessary to hint it, as well to warn him what will condemn him, that he may avoid it, as to prevent needless terrors upon well-meaning men, and the needless awe which some creditors, I understand, already think to fix upon their debtors to fright them from taking the benefit of this act. 1. It is not every error in account, mistake in casting up, wrong balance, or over or under appraisement of things, will bring a man in danger of this act, but it is in case of any wilful omission: the act is express in that, and no advantage can be taken where the omission does not appear wilful, and with design to defraud the creditors. Nor, with submission, is it the business of the debtor to state and balance his accounts; it is his business to deliver up his books just as they stood into the commissioner's custody, and they to have the stating and balancing the accounts themselves; otherwise the bankrupt stating things in the books may give him opportunities to make concealments which he could not do before. 2. Nor do any former concealments from creditors entitle a bankrupt to the penalties of this act, provided they are fairly acknowledged and laid open now; and therefore this act seems to me exactly calculated to make knaves honest men, and to put an end to the former secret clue of frauds which, on both sides, as well creditor as debtor, occasioned many an honest man to lose his estate. I do not wonder, therefore, to hear men exclaim against this act who have got large shares of the estates of their debtors in their hands, and who, by cunning, by force, and a hundred pretences, have made private bargains with debtors who sign compositions for a colour, and to draw other men in, but get private bonds, collateral securities, and the like, from the poor debtor, to bring them to that compliance. This act will be a day of judgment to such people, and honest I could mention; and it is a good caution men will now see who robbed them. These men commissioners and creditors not to trepan their I take to be worse cheats than the bankrupt, || The debtor, it is true, is equally in debt to every creditor separately, and ought to pay them the whole; but after a fraction, and he is unable to discharge the particular obligation, he becomes then obliged to them all as a body, and in honesty must not pay one more in proportion than another; he that does is not honest, and he that prompts him to do it to obtain any relaxation or abatement of prosecution is a worse knave than he. That creditor that takes it wilfully, and in such a manner, is an accessory to one of the worst of cheats; and, let him be who he will, he is a destroyer of other men's property, and a robber of his neighbour. owing to the bankrupt, and which in his account he may not have given in, will not expose him to the penalty of this act. It is true, if after his surrender the bankrupt should go about to receive the money and apply it to his private use, or should be put in mind of such a debt owing to him, and should not immediately discover it, he would in either of those cases incur the penalty and deservedly suffer it. I would therefore, in this case, to avoid the censure and misconstructions of mankind, and to remove the opportunity and advantages any man might make of others' infirmity,-I would, I say, recommend to every bankrupt that comes in and claims the benefit of this act, under the account of his affairs which he gives, and before his oath, to subscribe some short proviso like this: I, A. B., do farther declare, that if there be any error in the said accounts, or if any debt due or to grow due to me from any person, not inserted in this account, or any goods or effects of mine remaining in any person's hands, not mentioned and discovered in this said account, it is not wilfully made, omitted, or concealed, and shall be faithfully discovered, rectified, and surrendered, as soon as it shall occur to my knowledge and remembrance. That this act will make abundance of such frauds as these public, I make no doubt, and that the guilty must refund, I believe they do not doubt; and I question not but this is the principal reason why some people fly out against the act, and against me for my share in it. And let them rail; their guilt makes them angry; but honest men will share in the restitution they must make, and that is my satisfaction. I take them all to be politic thieves, and rejoice to see them come off so well, and not fare like thieves of less guilt, that die only because they have the misfor-articles, are never so frequent as when men, tune to come within the letter of the law. Let no bankrupt, therefore, blush to own what cruel creditors have lain hard upon them to do, whom they have made rob their other creditors to give them private satisfaction. This law is made not to punish you for the concealment, but them for the encroachment, and to bring them to restitution, that honest creditors may stand upon the same foot with them, and compositions make a better show than they used to do. And I cannot omit here what I purposely reserved to this place, that this act will produce this benefit to trade among the rest, that most bankrupts will make better compositions than before; and there are abundance of reasons to be given for it. 1. The tedious expenses of securing and coming at the effects will be shortened. I am not insensible that men whose affairs are declining are not always the exactest people in their books. It is a melancholy thing to be always balancing accounts of loss; there is something unpleasant in the very aspect of things when all goes to rack. Omissions, mistakes, and forgotten knowing they are playing a losing gaine, grow desperate, and care not which way things go; and in these hurries it may happen that an honest, well-meaning man may forget either a debt or a credit; a great many little clauses may slip his memory, and yet really design no wrong. God forbid men should be hanged for forgetting, while no fraud is intended in the design. Let such, therefore, not fear; the law is not designed for a trap to catch men upon advantages; commissions and commissioners are not ambuscades to surprise men: I would therefore have no man fear, in such cases, to make an honest discovery, nor to come again if afterwards he finds anything has slipped his memory, and honestly discover and restore it. Such a man will meet with encouragement, not reproach; and the honesty of a second discovery will be a confirmation of the 2. The easiness of concealments will be straight-sincerity of the first. ened, and the occasion of them in part removed. 3. Clandestine, collateral, and separate agreements with creditors, and partial private payments, will be effectually destroyed. All which will contribute to preserve the estate of the bankrupt, and consequently make the dividend the larger. That the division of the bankrupt's estate will be sooner, is a thing I need not spend time about, because it is apparent it must come sooner into the hands of the commissioners; and the bankrupt will be always assistant to the collecting and recovering it, which, as it has been, cannot often be had. But to return to the danger of the debtor in his surrendering his effects to his creditor. Every forgotten debt, which may be really This law is made to encourage honest men, and to punish knaves: it is made to make knavish debtors deliver, and knavish creditors refund; and in this it seems to have in it all the parts of a perfect law. I have been told the lawyers are hard at work to find out some flaws in this act, and studying how they may still hamper the debtor after he has done all the act requires, and is actually discharged. And, really, I would have those gentlemen go on with their pious endeavours; the discovery of their designs will only clear the way for the parliament another session to add such clauses as, if need be, shall further explain and determine all the doubts remaining, and bar all the back doors and outlets to knavery on one hand, and cruelty on the other. There may, for ought I know, be one public misfortune in this bill, with which I shall close this account, and, if possible, propose an equivalent. The mischief I speak of is to the manufacture of bumbing and bullying, which will be in great danger of being lost, to the ruin and impoverishing abundance of poor, industrious families, who are now maintained by the laudable employment of bailiffs, bailiffs' followers, serjeants, yeomen, marshals' men, and all the worthy et ceteras of settlers, spungers, appraisers, spunging-houses, private prisons, and the like, who now live on the life-blood of tradesmen, and help to pull down those that are falling fast enough of themselves. Add to these the fall of rents in the Mint and Rules, where bills begin to be seen upon the doors already by the multitude of people who, creditors finding this act will at last compel them to it, begin to agree with and voluntarily release; and where in time the like desolation may be probable to ensue as already has happened in White Friars. Gaols will also be sharers in this disaster; waiters, tenders, turnkeys, &c., will lose their fees; and those nests of cruelty and misery be like a cage without a bird. Multitudes of laborious people, called solicitors, and pettifogging attorneys, hackney-bails, affidavit-men, and the like, may now be in danger to lose their employment, lose the opportunity of taking large pay for doing no business, and charging double fees for leaving people worse than they find them. Now, as this can no way be immediately prevented, I cannot think I am able to say anything more to their consolation than to propose some equivalent to prevent the entire ruin of so many diligent people and their dependents. And that this may be effectual I shall divide it as I have done the people. 1. As to the fraternity of the catchpoles, I propose to them honestly, and for the good of their country, to assemble together and make a detachment of 10,000 able-bodied men out of their society, a number they can very well spare, and offer their service on board her Majesty's fleet to fight in defence of the kingdom, and make amends for the damage they have done at home by ruining many thousand honest families they might have saved; and this it is plain they may do, and yet leave enough of their trade to execute all the necessary part of the law. 2. As to the attorneys, solicitors, &c., they may turn their hands to the more laudable practice of picking pockets, according to the letter of it; and then in time may meet with the reward of their former merit by a way they have often deserved it. All the rest, applying to honest livelihoods, may be pardoned, and live to give God thanks, with the rest of the nation, for the blessing of this act of parliament. PUBLIC UPON CREDIT; BEING AN ENQUIRY HOW THE PUBLIC CREDIT COMES TO DEPEND UPON THE CHANGE OF THE MINISTRY, OR THE DISSOLUTIONS OF PARLIAMENTS; AND WHETHER IT DOES SO OR NO. WITH AN ARGUMENT PROVING THAT THE PUBLIC CREDIT MAY BE UPHELD AND PERHAPS BROUGHT TO A GREATER HEIGHT THAN IT EVER YET ARRIVED AT; THOUGH ALL THE CHANGES OR DISSOLUTIONS ALREADY MADE, PRetended to, AND NOW DISCOURSED OF, SHOULD COME TO PASS IN THE WORLD. BY DANIEL DE FOE. LONDON: PRINTED AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS. |