and the remainder of the goods. At the moment that they were preparing to carry this measure into effect, some English men of war appeared in sight, and as they were now near the coast of France, Niquet, with the Alert, ran into Quimper, and the other vessels reached the small port of Benaulet.

Owing to the active interference of the captain of the privateer, Mitchell was not put into prison, as he otherwise would have been, the law of France not permitting the masters or supercargoes of vessels of the tonnage of the Alert to be at large. At the request of Mitchell, Niquet also procured the liberation of Mauger. This generous freemason then aided them to escape from Quimper to L'Orient, and gave them an unrestricted letter of credit on one of the principal banks of that town, in which they passed for uncle and nephew, giving out that they were Americans who had taken their passage from Guernsey to Gibraltar for the purpose of claiming a schooner, which had been detained on the supposition of having French prisoners on board. Their intention was to escape from L'Orient, by taking their passage on board some one of the licensed vessels which were loading there for England. They at last completed their arrangement with a Papenburgh ship loading for London, but unfortunately for them, the master suspecting that they were not Americans, gave information to the authorities, on which they were arrested as spies, placed in close confinement in separate cells, and repeatedly examined by the officers of the tribunal of L'Orient. But they had the firmness and discretion never to vary from their original statement, and thus baffled all judicial interrogatories.

Information soon reached Niquet of their unexpected difficulties, and this faithful friend repaired to L'Orient, and there declared that they were Americans, he having known Mitchell personally, when he traded from St. Pierre de Miquelon, his native place, to America. This evidence released them from prison, and they remained two months at L'Orient; but seeing no hopes of effecting their liberty, Niquet furnished them the means of proceeding to a small port called Concarneau, and by his recommendation and influence, they there procured a boat and provisions, and thus quitted the French territory.

After being eight days at sea in this open boat in the Bay of Biscay, where they experienced in March a succession of rough weather, they gave themselves up as lost; for they determined to brave the elements and perish, rather than risk a second trip to France. When in this dreadful state of anxiety, a vessel hove in sight, and by a most extraordinary chance, it proved to be the privateer Miquelonais, again commanded by their old friend Niquet. He received them with all his former kindness, and ordered their boat to be hoisted on board, giving them every comfort that he could supply to recruit their strength, exhausted as they were from cold, and want of sleep. He then desired his carpenter to raise the boat by two planks, and put her in a fit condition to resist the sea. Captain Niquet then promised that he would make the rock Douvres, and pass as near Guernsey as he safely could, putting them in as fair a way as possible to reach that island. On the 2d of April, he took the English brig Alexander, bound from Falmouth to Vigo, with a cargo of lead, iron, and velvet. The vessel was sunk, but before that, the captain took all the velvet out of her, and gave it as a present to Mitchell and Mauger, saying that it would in some degree reward them for their misfortunes.

But this truly noble-minded Frenchman was not able to perform his generous promise; for while passing near Brest, he was seen by some of the frigates of the British squadron then blockading that port, and after a long chase he was taken by the Unicorn and Stag, and carried into Plymouth. Captain Mauger, having been desired to act with the British officer who took charge of the Miquelonais, arrived in her at Plymouth, where he was well received by Lord Keith, then admiral of that port, who offered him the situation of master's mate, which he declined. Lord Keith procured him a passage in the scout, Friends, of Jersey, from which he landed in Guernsey on the 10th of April, 1813.

Captain Niquet was confined in Dartmoor prison. As soon as Mitchell was informed of it, he repaired thither, and succeeded in assisting him to make his escape, but having remained too long at one of the inns on the road, they were retaken near to Exeter. Niquet was conducted back to his old quarters, and Mitchell stood his trial at the assizes, when he was sentenced to seven years transportation to Botany Bay, according to act of parliament. On representations being made to government, this sentence was commuted into one year's detention in Worcester castle. But, from causes not within our knowledge, the meritorious conduct of the excellent Niquet was either unknown to the ministers, or most

unkindly passed by, for he remained in prison till the termination of the war, and died about six years agone. Mauger had left for Newfoundland, but still, as Mitchell was relieved from the punishment pronounced on him by the judge, it appears most extraordinary that the disinterested French freemason was not sent home on his parole.

We take this opportunity of calling on all our supporters in Guernsey and Jersey, to persuade their seafaring friends, who served during the late war, either in merchantmen or in privateers, to amuse themselves during the ensuing winter months in recording their adventures, and we are sure that their countrymen will read them with pleasure. There ought to be no apathy on this subject: we know that the materials are abundant, and if our correspondents will only rouse up sufficient industry to collect facts and dates, we will cheerfully reduce the narrative into form.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF GUERNSEY..

No. 3.-DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.

THE laws at present in force and administered in Guernsey between debtors and their creditors, have, within the last thirteen years, undergone many important changes; and the marked, not to say unjust, distinctions which they formerly made between natives and strangers, with regard to their liability to arrest, and privilege of renunciation, are now all but totally abolished

All persons, whether strangers or natives, possessing real property in the island, are at present equally liable to arrest for debts due on promissory notes, bills of exchange, or other negociable securities. The process by which such arrest is made is a warrant, under the hand of the bailiff, or his lieutenant, or, in their absence, under the hands of two jurats, permitting the creditor to arrest the person or goods of the debtor for the sum alleged to be due, which writ is executed by the king's sheriff, or his deputy, or, in their absence, by the king's sergeant, or his deputy.

The person or goods of a stranger, or of a native who possesses no real property, are also liable to be arrested for simple contract debts; but in the case of a native possessed of real property, the goods only can be arrested for such debt.

The person and goods of a stranger are protected from arrest in all cases of simple book debts, contracted out of the jurisdiction, until such stranger have acquired a settlement on the island by a constant residence of a year and a day; provided, however, such debt be not due on a promissory note, bill of exchange, or other negociable security; and that it be not a debt arising from a bond or other document bearing proof of its being due.

No arrest of the person can take place except for sums amounting to £5 sterling, or upwards; and it must, in every case, be founded upon an affidavit taken before the bailiff, lieutenant-bailiff, or a jurat of the court.

When an arrest of the person takes place, the body of the debtor is committed to jail, unless he can produce bail for his appearance at any time he may be required, which bail is taken by the officer who executes the writ.

An attachment of the goods, whether of a stranger or native, whether for negociable securities or simple contract debts, may be made for any sum, and it need not be founded upon any affidavit.

When goods are attached, the officer who executes the writ makes an inventory of them, and they are considered in his custody; but, in point of fact, the debtor is commonly left in possession of them until the decision of the case, but he cannot exercise any act of ownership over them beyond the mere usufruct.

The person and goods of a debtor can in no case be taken together in execution for the same debt: the creditor, in cases where the person is liable, may make his election of the person or the goods, but he must confine himself to one only. He, however, after having made his election, may, under a special permission of the court to the obtaining of which permission the debtor must be summoned to be present-release the person and attach the goods, or abandon the goods and arrest the person.

A debtor, against whom a writ of arrest is issued, may bail either his goods or his person. The right of becoming bail was formerly confined to natives possessing real property; but it is now extended to all persons, whether natives or strangers, who, if required by the creditors to do so, can prove by a declaration

upon oath, that they are possessed of sufficient property, over and above the payment of their own debts, to answer the demand of the creditor, and that one-half at least of that property is real estate within the island.

The bail, in all cases, is to surrender the person or goods of the debtor at any time during, or at the close of the suit, or to pay the sum awarded to the creditor by the court.

After an arrest of the person or goods has been made, the defendant is called upon, by summons, to attend the court at its next sitting, generally on the ensuing Saturday, to show cause why the arrest should not be confirmed. If the creditor neglect to issue such summons, the defendant has a right to turn plaintiff, and to summon him to show cause why the arrest should not be set aside, and in default of the creditor's answering on the very first summons, the arrest is so set aside, with costs.

In all proceedings which relate to arrests, either of the person or goods, natives and strangers are precisely upon the same footing as to the times of hearing causes and obtaining judgment.

Until very recently, a creditor attaching the goods of his debtor, and obtaining a single act of court recording such attachment, acquired a preference upon such goods to the full amount of his claim, over all the other creditors, even though such attachment should so shake the debtor's credit as to involve him in bankruptcy. This custom-which in many cases proved a flagrant injustice to creditors absent from the island, who, having no means of knowing what was going on here, could not provide for their own security-is said to have been founded upon a maxim of the Norman law: "La loi subvient au diligent,”—a maxim which, however, favouring as it often did the most relentless creditor to the prejudice not only of the indulgent, but of those who, through absence from the island, were incapable of helping themselves, might with greater propriety have been rendered:"La loi subvient à l'implacable, et écrase l'indulgent et l'impuissant.” The class of creditors who in general suffered most from its effects, were those which the law should have been most solicitous to protect, namely, English houses furnishing Guernsey tradesmen with manufactured and other goods. They were indeed so unprotected, that it was no uncommon circumstance, when a bankruptcy took place, for some of them to have the mortification of seeing the produce of goods which they had furnished, but had not been paid for, applied to liquidate the claims of favoured creditors to the exclusion of their own.

A case of this nature, which occurred in 1834, led to a change in the law. It presented itself under the palpable and aggravated form of a fraudulent attempt to shut out a body of English creditors, whose claims amounted to upwards of £5,000, from all participation in the produce of a linen draper's stock which themselves had furnished. A most determined opposition, however, manifested itself on the part of these creditors, who forthwith issued a commission against the debtor in the English bankrupt court, under which commission they appointed assignees who, step by step, opposed here the proceedings of the parties who claimed a preference, and expressed their decided resolution to carry the question before his Majesty in council, rather than submit to what they very properly held to be a flagrant perversion both of law and justice. The affair exciting considerable indignation in the British metropolis, the whole trading part of the community here were so awakened to a sense of the danger that threatened their credit in the English market if the law remained unchanged, as to induce our chamber of commerce to remonstrate against it; and the court, after having judicially rejected the claim of preference in the particular case referred to, ruled legislatively at the chief pleas held on the 18th January, 1836, that from thenceforth no registry against real property, nor act of court recording or confirming an attachment against personal property, acquired within a fortnight antecedently to an insolvency, should entitle the creditor to any preference on such property,-the date of such insolvency to be subsequently decided upon by the court, according to the circumstances of each case.

It may sometimes occur, that after a creditor has taken his option to attach the goods, he may apprehend an intention on the part of the debtor to remove himself out of the jurisdiction, which would have the effect of considerably protracting the suit, by compelling the creditor to have the king's sergeant appointed as the debtor's representative in the suit, which is rather a tedious process. In a case of this nature, the creditor is allowed to arrest the person of the defendant, for the purpose of compelling him to appoint some native to represent his person in the suit, and to answer in his stead, in the event of his leaving the island. To arrests of this description, natives, even though possessing real property, are as liable

as strangers, and in no case is the plaintiff bound to furnish proof of the defendant's intention to quit the island.

Thirty years was, until recently, the term of limitation within which all actions for personal debts, or other demands not affecting real property, were to be instituted. This term, however, being universally admitted to be inconveniently long, and the interests of trade requiring that it should be considerably abridged, the court, at the last chief pleas, held in April, 1836, passed an ordinance to the effect, that from and after the 1st June thence next ensuing, the right to institute actions for the recovery of personal debts or demands-the same not being acknowledged either in writing or by act of court-should be barred by the lapse of ten years; and that with regard to antecedently created debts or demands, against which the former limitation of thirty years had commenced, but for the completion of which limitation upwards of ten years would be required from the 1st June, 1836, all right of action for such debts or demands should likewise be barred by the lapse of ten years from the said day.

The laws which obtain in Guernsey in relation to insolvent debtors, and which serve as substitutes to bankrupt laws, are known under the terms cession and renunciation.

Cession is the privilege which an insolvent debtor, actually in jail, has of freeing himself from imprisonment, on giving up all his property to his creditors, and promising on oath to pay them any deficit if he ever has it in his power.

Renunciation is the giving up of the debtor's property, in favour of his creditors, without any promise of future payment,-by which act he is therefore entirely freed, not only from the particular debt or debts which are the subject of the suit, but from all others which he may have contracted up to that time. This renunciation is called renonciation volontaire, or voluntary renunciation, as distinguished from the renonciation par loi outrée, or compulsory renunciation, of which some account will be given when we come to treat of the terms, divisions, and judicial proceedings of the royal court.

Formerly, the privilege of cession was confined to natives, and that of renunciation to natives possessed of real property; but as the acquisition of the smallest fractional portion of real property entitled the debtor to the benefit of renunciation, and as reserved rents on estates are deemed as fully real property as the lands or houses on which they are due, an insolvent debtor, contemplating a failure, had only to purchase so trifling a portion of rent as the sixth part of a bushel of wheat, in order to his being deemed a possessor of real property, and therefore entitled to renounce. The practice of cession, in process of time, therefore gave way to the more extensive effect of renunciation, and so matters continued until 1825, when, by an order in council, dated the 20th December of that year, several important regulations were established in relation to the mode of administering both the one and the other.

At present all natives, whether possessed of real property or not, and all British subjects having resided in the island a year and a day, who offer to renounce before they are imprisoned for debt, are alike entitled to the benefit of renunciation. The benefit of cession may be granted to the same classes of individuals, when imprisoned for debt, and immediately after hearing the creditor or creditors, at whose suit they are in prison.

Although a debtor actually in jail can have only the benefit of cession extended to him, this must be understood to relate only to the claims of the creditors who have arrested his person; for, with regard to the claims of all his other creditors, he may be admitted to take the benefit of renunciation.

To all others—for instance to aliens, and to British subjects who have not resided a year and a day in the island-the benefit of cession may be allowed, after an imprisonment of three months, and provided no fraud is apparent.

In cases where the creditor shows a sufficient reason, the period of imprisonment antecedent to the admission of the debtor to the benefit of cession may, at the discretion of the court, be prolonged to two years.

On a debtor's praying to be allowed the benefit of renunciation or cession, the action on which he may happen to be sued is postponed for a month, and a provisional committee, composed of three of the principal creditors resident in the island, is appointed by the court, (generally without the concurrence or knowledge of such creditors, a circumstance that often leads to the appointment of persons unwilling or unable to serve,) whose duty it is to take charge of the debtor's property, to receive from him, within four days, and in presence of a jurat of the court appointed to act as commissioner, a statement of his debts and assets, to the truth of which he is bound to subscribe upon oath,-to convene, by means of

public notice in the local papers, a general meeting of the creditors, which is held under the presidency of the commissioner, and at which the debtor is examined touching the nature of his debts, assets, and the causes of his insolvency, and a permanent committee is appointed to take charge of his property. After these formalities have been attended to, notice is again given, by means of the local newspapers, that the debtor on a given day-generally the fourth Saturday after his request to be allowed the benefit of renunciation or cession-will present himself at the bar of the court for the purpose of renewing that request, so that such of them as wish to oppose it may be present to state their objections.

After hearing the creditors, if any present themselves, the debtor against whom nothing appears to the contrary, is admitted to the benefit of renunciation. But when there are reasons to the contrary, proved to the satisfaction of the court, the debtor may be admitted only to the benefit of cession. And in cases of evident fraud, the court may refuse the benefit of either. B

THE LATE BILLET D'ETAT.

THE address of the States to his Excellency Major-General Ross, inserted below, is a grateful and becoming testimony to the valuable services rendered by the governor to all classes of our inhabitants during his successful administration. The public acts of men in office, however useful to the community, are not the best criteria by which moral character ought to be judged; but when these are accompanied by the quiet and unobtrusive exercise of the private virtues, the gratitude of a nation is as spontaneous, as universal. Justice requires us to say that General Ross is entitled to this united praise; and that he has won the undivided homage of Guernseymen by displaying energy when their privileges required protection, and allowing his prerogative to slumber, when their comforts and interests were best served by repose. His activity shone forth in the cases of the cholera, the corn trade, and the tithe commutation; his moderation is attested by the lenity with which he has enforced militia duty. In war, a gallant soldier; in peace, an able administrator; rewarded by his sovereign with military honours, and the command of a regiment; he leaves our shores with the approbation of the wise, the esteem of the good, the gratitude of the poor, and the hearty and sincere good wishes of the whole population.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY MAJOR-GENERAL Ross, LIEUT.-GOVERNOR
OF GUERNSEY.

SIR, The States of Guernsey, assembled on the occasion of your approaching departure, beg leave to assure your Excellency of their continued respect and attachment. They contemplate with feelings of a conflicting nature the separation about to take place; with those of regret for the loss they will sustain-of satisfaction for the attainment of that reward which your services so justly merit. They look back, however, with unmixed pleasure to eight years of uninterrupted harmony; to the number of good services rendered to the island during that period; and to the part taken by your Excellency in procuring the late increase to the benefices of the parochial clergy, as well as the substitution of a payment to them in lieu of tithes on fish, both out of a fund before lost to the island, and the latter to the great relief of one of its most industrious classes. So long a course of good government on one side, of prosperity to the community, its natural result, on the other, calls forth from that community the expression of its gratitude.

In the name of the inhabitants of Guernsey, the States do therefore present their grateful thanks to your Excellency, and with them a piece of plate, of which they request the acceptance as a faint token of their good wishes, and affectionate remembrance. In the name of the States.

(Signed by the Committee.)

Of the dispute between the Banks and the States, we abstain, at least for the present, to take any particular notice. We lament that any such collision should have disturbed the harmony of the island, and hoping that all differences may be amicably adjusted by the finance committee, we deem it prudent to decline any observation on the existing controversy, which might add more fuel to the flames already kindled.