would expose their folly; and for the purposes of humiliation, simply pass them by. The sun that shines upon them, makes them look bright and large. Let reason and truth withdraw their rays, and these seeming stars will quickly set in silence and in dark ness. More contemptible motives to the profession of infidelity cannot perhaps exist, but there are some which are more detestable. Hartley says that "the strictness and purity of the Christian religion in respect to sexual licentiousness, is probably the chief thing which makes vicious men first fear and hate, and then vilify and oppose it." * Whether therefore we regard the motives which lead to scepticism, or the reasonableness of the grounds upon which it is commonly founded, there is surely much reason for an ingenious young person to hold in contempt the jests, and pleasantries, and sophistries respecting revelation with which he may be assailed. DISQUISITIONS respecting the Origin of Property appear to be of little use; partly because the origin can scarcely be determined, and partly because, if it could be determined, the discovery would be little applicable to the present condition of human affairs. In whatever manner an estate was acquired two thousand years ago, it is of no consequence in enquiring who ought to possess it now. The foundation of the Right of Property is a more important point. Ordinarily, the foundation is the law of the land. Of Civil Government-which institution is sanctioned by the divine will-one of the great offices is, to regulate the distribution of property; to give it, if it has the power of giving; or to decide, between opposing claimants, to whom it shall be assigned. The proposition therefore, as a general rule, is sound; He possesses a right to property to whom the law of the land assigns it. This however is only a general rule. It has been sufficiently seen that some legal possessions are not permitted by the Moral Law. The occasional opposition between the moral and the legal right to property, is inseparable from the principle on which law is founded-that of acting upon general rules. It is impossible to frame any rule, the application of which shall, in every variety of circumstances, effect the requisitions of Christian morality. A rule which in nine cases proves equitable, may prove utterly unjust in the tenth. A rule which in nine cases promotes the welfare of the citizen, may in the tenth outrage reason and humanity. It is evident that in the present state of legal institutions, the evils which result from laws respecting property must be prevented, if they are prevented at all, by the exercise of virtue in individuals. If the law assigns a hundred pounds to me, which * Observations on Man. every upright man perceives ought in equity to have been assigned to another, that other has no means of enforcing his claim. Either therefore the claim of equity must be disregarded, or I must voluntarily satisfy it. There are many cases connected with the acquisition or retention of property, with which the decisions of law are not immediately connected, but respecting which it is needful to exercise a careful discrimination, in order to conform to the requisitions of Christian rectitude. The whole subject is of great interest, and of extensive practical application in the intercourse of life. The reader will therefore be presented with several miscellaneous examples, in which the Moral Law appears to require greater purity of rectitude than is required by statutes, or than is ordinarily practised by mankind. That INSOLVENCY.-Why is a man obliged to pay his debts? It is to be hoped that the morality of few persons is lax enough to reply-Because the law compels him. But why, then, is he obliged to pay them? Because the Moral Law requires it, this is the primary ground of the obligation is evident; otherwise the payment of any debt which a vicious or corrupt legislature resolved to cancel, would cease to be obligatory upon the debtor. The Virginian statute, which we noticed in the last Essay, would have been a sufficient justification to the planters to defraud their creditors. A man becomes insolvent and is made a bankrupt: he pays his creditors ten shillings instead of twenty, and obtains his certificate. The law, therefore, discharges him from the obligation to pay more. The bankrupt receives a large legacy, or he engages in business and acquires property. Being then able to pay the remainder of his debts, does the legal discharge exempt him from the obligation to pay them? No: and for this reason, that the legal discharge is not a moral discharge; that as the duty to pay at all was not founded primarily on the law, the law cannot warrant him in withholding a part. ness. It is however said, that the creditors have relinquished their right to the remainder by signing the certificate. But why did they accept half their demands instead of the whole? Because they were As to obliged to do it; they could get no more. granting the certificate, they do it because to withhold it would be only an act of gratuitous unkindIt would be preposterous to say that creditors relinquish their claims voluntarily; for no one would give up his claim to twenty shillings on the receipt of ten, if he could get the other ten by refusing. It might as reasonably be said that a man parts with a limb voluntarily, because, having incurably lacerated it, he submits to an amputation. It is to be remembered, too, that the necessary relinquishment of half the demand is occasioned by the debtor himself: and it seems very manifest that when a man, by his own act, deprives another of his property, he cannot allege the consequences of that act as a justification of withholding it after restoration is in his power. The mode in which an insolvent man obtains a discharge, does not appear to affect his subsequent duties. Compositions, and bankruptcies, and discharges by an insolvent act are in this respect alike. The acceptance of a part instead of the whole is not voluntary in either case; and neither case exempts the debtor from the obligation to pay in full if he can. If it should be urged that when a person intrusts property to another, he knowingly undertakes the risk of that other's insolvency, and that, if the contingent loss happens, he has no claims to justice on the other, the answer is this: that whatever may be thought of these claims, they are not the grounds upon which the debtor is obliged to pay. The debtor always engages to pay, and the engagement is enforced by morality: the engagement therefore is binding, whatever risk another man may incur by relying upon it. The causes which have occasioned a person's insolvency, although they greatly affect his character, do not affect his obligations: the duty to repay when he has the power, is the same whether the insolvency were occasioned by his fault or his misfortune. In all cases, the reasoning that applies to the debt, applies also to the interest that accrues upon it; although, with respect to the acceptance of both, and especially of interest, a creditor should exercise a considerate discretion.-A man who has failed of paying his debts ought always to live with frugality, and carefully to economize such money as he gains. He should reflect that he is a trustee for his creditors, and that all the needless money which he expends is not his, but theirs. The amount of property which the trading part of a commercial nation loses by insolvency, is great enough to constitute a considerable national evil. The fraud, too, that is practised under cover of insolvency, is doubtless the most extensive of all species of private robbery. The profligacy of some of these cases is well known to be extreme. He who is a bankrupt to-day, riots in the luxuries of affluence to-morrow; bows to the creditors whose money he is spending, and exults in the success and the impunity of his wickedness. Of such conduct, we should not speak or think but with detestation. We should no more sit at the table, or take the hand, of such a man, than if we knew he had got his money last night on the highway. There is a wickedness in some bankruptcies to which the guilt of ordinary robbers approaches but at a distance. Happy, if such wickedness could not be practised with legal impunity!* Happy, if Public Opinion supplied the deficiency of the law, and held the iniquity in rightful abhorrence !+ Perhaps nothing would tend so efficaciously to diminish the general evils of insolvency, as a sound state of public opinion respecting the obligation to pay our debts. The insolvent who, with the means of paying, retains the money in his own pocket, is, and he should be regarded as being, a dishonest man. If Public Opinion held such conduct to be of the same character as theft, probably a more powerful motive to avoid insolvency would be established than any which now exists. Who would not anxiously (and therefore, in almost all cases, successfully) struggle against insolvency, when he knew that it would be followed, if not by permanent poverty, by permanent disgrace? If it should be said that to act upon such a system would overwhelm an insolvent's energies, keep him in perpetual inactivity, and deprive his family of the benefit of his exertions I answer, that the evil, supposing it to impend, would be much less extensive than may be imagined. The calamity being foreseen, would prevent men from becoming insolvent; and it is certain that the majority might have avoided insolvency by sufficient care. Besides, if a man's principles are such that he would rather sink into inactivity than exert himself in order to be just, it is not necessary to mould public opinion to his character. The question too is, not whether some men would not prefer indolence to the calls of justice, but whether the public should judge accurately respecting what those calls are. The state, and especially a family, might lose occasionally by this reform of opinion--and so they do by sending a man to New South Wales; but who would think this a good reason for setting criminals + Id. See the 3d Essay. at large? And after all, much more would be gained by preventing insolvency, than lost by the ill consequences upon the few who failed to pay their debts. It is cause of satisfaction that, respecting this rectified state of opinion, and respecting integrity of private virtue, some examples are offered. There is one community of Christians which holds its members obliged to pay their debts whenever they possess the ability, without regard to the legal discharge.* By this means, there is thrown over the character of every bankrupt who possesses property, a shade which nothing but payment can dispel. The effect (in conjunction we may hope with private integrity of principle) is good-good, both in instituting a new motive to avoid insolvency, and in inducing some of those who do become insolvent, subsequently to pay all their debts. Of this latter effect many honourable instances might be given: two of which have fallen under my observation, I would briefly mention.-A man had become insolvent, I believe in early life; his creditors divided his property amongst them, and gave him a legal discharge. He appears to have formed the resolution to pay the remainder, if his own exertions should enable him to do it. He procured employment, by which however he never gained more than twenty shillings a-week; and worked industriously and lived frugally for eighteen years. At the expiration of this time, he found he had accumulated enough to pay the remainder, and he sent the money to his creditors. Such a man, I think, might hope to derive, during the remainder of his life, greater satisfaction from the consciousness of integrity, than he would have derived from expending the money on himself. It should be told that many of his creditors, when they heard the circumstances, declined to receive the money, or voluntarily presented it to him again. One of these was my neighbour : he had been little accustomed to exemplary virtue, and the proffered money astonished him: he talked in loud commendation of what to him was unheardof integrity; signed a receipt for the amount, and sent it back as a present to the debtor. The other instance may furnish hints of a useful kind. It was the case of a female who had endeavoured to support herself by the profits of a shop, She however became insolvent, paid some dividend, and received a discharge. She again entered into business, and in the course of years had accumulated enough to pay the remainder of her debts. But the infirmities of age were now coming on, and the annual income from her savings was just sufficient for the wants of declining years. Being thus at present unable to discharge her obligations without subjecting herself to the necessity of obtaining relief from others; she executed a will, directing that at her death the creditors should be paid the remainder of their demands: and when she died they were paid accordingly. WILLS, LEGATEES, AND HEIRS.-The right of a person to order the distribution of his property after "Where any have injured others in their property, the greatest frugality should be observed by themselves and their families; and although they may have a legal discharge from their creditors, both equity and our Christian profession demand, that none, when they have it in their power, should rest satisfied until a just restitution be made to those who have suffered by them." "And it is the judgment of this meeting, that monthly and other meetings ought not to receive collections or bequests for the use of the poor, or any other services of the Society, of persons who have fallen short in the payment of their just debts, though legally discharged by their creditors: for until such persons have paid the deficiency, their possessions cannot in equity be considered as their own." Official Documents of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends. death, is recommended by its Utility; and were this less manifest than it is, it would be sufficient for us that the right is established by civil government. It however happens in practice, that persons sometimes distribute their property in a manner that is both unreasonable and unjust. This evil the law cannot easily remedy; and consequently the duty of remedying it, devolves upon those to whom the property is bequeathed. If they do not prevent the injustice, it cannot be prevented. This indicates the propriety, on the part of a legatee or an heir, of considering, when property devolves to him in a manner or in a proportion that appears improper, how he may exercise upright integrity, lest he should be the practical agent of injustice or oppression. Another cause for the exercise of this integrity consists in this circumstance:-When the right of a person to bequeath his property is admitted, it is evident that his intention ought in general to be the standard of his successor's conduct: and accordingly the law, in making enactments upon the subject, directs much of its solicitude to the means of ascertaining and of fulfilling the testator's intentions. These intentions must, according to the existing systems of Jurisprudence, be ascertained by some general rules-by a written declaration perhaps, or a declaration of a specified kind, or made in a prescribed form, or attested in a particular manner. But in consequence of this it happens, that as through accident or inadvertency a testator does not always comply with these forms, the law, which adheres to its rules, frustrates his intentions, and therefore, in effect, defeats its own object in prescribing the forms. Here again the intentions of the deceased and the demands of equity cannot be fulfilled, except by the virtuous integrity of heirs and legatees. I. If my father, who had one son besides myself, left nine-tenths of his property to me, and only the remaining tenth to my brother, I should not think the will, however authentic, justified me in taking so large a proportion, unless I could discover some reasonable motive which influenced my father's mind. If my brother already possessed a fortune and I had none; if I were married and had a numerous family, and he were single and unlikely to marry; if he was incurably extravagant, and would probably in a few weeks or months squander his patrimony; in these, or in such circumstances, I should think myself at liberty to appropriate my father's bequest: otherwise I should not. Thus, if the disproportionate division was the effect of some unreasonable prejudice against my brother, or fondness for me; or if it was made at the unfair instigation of another person, or in a temporary fit of passion or disgust; I could not, virtuously, enforce the will. The reason is plain. The will being unjust or extremely unreasonable, I should be guilty of injustice or extreme unreasonableness in enforcing it. By the English law, the real estates of deceased persons are not available for the payment, of debts of simple contract, unless they are made so by the will. The rule is, to be sure, sufficiently barbarous; and he who intentionally forbears to make the estates available, dies, as has been properly observed, with a deliberate fraud in his heart. But this fraud cannot be completed without the concurrence of a second person, the heir. He therefore is under a moral obligation to pay such debts out of the real estate, notwithstanding the deficiency of the will: for if the father was fraudulent in making such a will, the son is fraudulent in taking advantage of his parent's wickedness. He may act with strict legality in keeping the property, but he is condemned as dishonest by the Moral Law. II. A person bequeathes five hundred pounds to some charity-for example, to the Foundling-and directs that the money shall be laid out in land. His intention is indisputably plain: but the law, with certain motives, says, that the direction to lay out the money in land makes the bequest void; and it will not enforce the bequest. But, because the testator forgot this, can the residuary legatee honestly put the five hundred pounds into his own pocket? Assuredly he cannot. The money is as truly the property of the Foundling as if the will had been accurately framed. The circumstance that the law will not compel him to give it up, although it may exempt him from an action, cannot exempt him from guilt. The law, either with reason or without it, prefers that an estate should descend to a brother's son rather than a sister's. Still it permits a man to leave it to his sister's son if he pleases; and only requires that, when he wishes to do this, he shall have three witnesses to his will instead of two. The reader will remark that the object of this legal provision is, that the intention of the party shall be indisputably known. The legislature does not wish to control him in the disposition of his property, but only to ascertain distinctly what his intention is. A will then is made, leaving an estate to a sister's son, and is attested by two witnesses only, The omission of the third is a matter of mere inadvertence; no doubt exists as to the person's intention or its reasonableness. Is it then consistent with integrity for the brother's son to take advantage of the omission, and to withhold the estate from his cousin? I think the conscience of every man will answer no: and if this be the fact, we need enquire no further. Upon such a subject, the concurrent dictates in the minds of men can scarcely be otherwise than true and just. But even critically, the same conclusion appears to follow. The law required three witnesses in order that the person's intention should be known. Now it is known and therefore the very object of the law is attained. To take advantage of the omission is, in reality, to misapply the law. It is insisting upon its letter in opposition to its motives and design. Dr Paley has decided this question otherwise, by a process of reasoning of which the basis does not appear very sound. He says that such a person has right" to dispose of the property, because the law conferred the right upon condition that he should have three witnesses, with which condition he has not complied. But surely the "right" of disposing property is recognized generally by the law; the requisition of three witnesses is not designed to confer a right, but to adjust the mode of exercising it. Indeed, Paley himself virtually gives up his own doctrine; for he says he should hesitate in applying it, if “considerations of pity to distress, or duty to a parent, or of gratitude to a benefactor,' "would be disregarded by the application. Why should these considerations suspend the applicability of his doctrine? Because Christianity requires us to attend to them--which is the very truth we are urging we say, the permission of the law is not a sufficient warrant to disregard the obligations of Christianity. no A man who possesses five thousand pounds, has two sons, of whom John is well provided for, and Thomas is not. With the privity of his sons he makes a will, leaving four thousand pounds to Thomas and one to John, explaining to both the reason of this division. A fire happens in the house and the will is burnt; and the father, before he has the opportunity of making another, is carried off by a * Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 1, c. 23. fever. Now the English law would assign a half of the money to each brother. If John demands his half, is he a just man? Every one I think will perceive that he is not, and that, if he demanded it, he would violate the duties of benevolence. The law is not his sufficient rule. A person whose near relations do not stand in need of his money, adopts the children of distant relatives, with the declared intention or manifest design of providing for them at his death. If, under such circumstances, he dies without a will, the heir at law could not morally avail himself of his legal privilege, to the injury of these expectant parties. They need the money, and he does not; which is one good reason for not seizing it; but the intention of the deceased invested them with a right; and so that the intention is known, it matters little to the moral obligation, whether it is expressed on paper or not. Possibly some reader may say, that if an heir or legatee must always institute enquiries into the uncertain claims of others before he accepts the property of the deceased, and if he is obliged to give up his own claims whenever their's seem to preponderate, he will be involved in endless doubts and scruples, and testators will never know whether their wills will be executed or not: the answer is, that no such scrupulousness is demanded. Hardheartedness, and extreme unreasonableness, and injustice, are one class of considerations; critical scruples, and uncertain claims, are another. It may be worth a paragraph to remark, that it is to be feared some persons think too complacently of their charitable bequests, or, what is worse, hope that it is a species of good works which will counterbalance the offence of some present irregularities of conduct. Such bequests ought not to be discouraged; and yet it should be remembered, that he who gives money after his death, parts with nothing of his own. He gives it only when he cannot retain it. The man who leaves his money for the single purpose of doing good, does right: but he who hopes that it is a work of merit, should remember that the money is given, that the privation is endured, not by himself but by his heirs. A man who has more than he needs, should dispense it whilst it is his own. dishonesty in one person by tempting the probity of another. The youth, too, is of all persons the last who should profit by the punishment of the trader. He is reprehensible himself: young men who contract such debts are seldom so young or so ignorant as not to know that they are doing wrong. A man's wife "runs him into debt" by extravagant purchases which he is alike unable to prevent or to afford. Many persons sell goods to such a woman, who are conscious of her habits and of the husband's situation, yet continue to supply her extravagance, because they know the law will enable them to enforce payment from the husband. These persons act legally, but they are legally wicked. Do they act as they would desire others to act towards them? Would one of these men wish another tradesman so to supply his own wife if she was notoriously a spendthrift? If not, morality condemns his conduct: and the laws, in effect, condemn it too; for the Legislature would not have made husbands responsible for their wives' debts any more than for their children's, but for the presumption that the wife generally buys what the husband approves. Debts of unprincipled extravagance, are not debts which the law intended to provide that the husband should pay. If all women contracted such debts, the Legislature would instantly alter the law. If the Legislature could have made the distinction, perhaps it would have made it; since it did not or could not, the deficiency must be supplied by private integrity. BILLS OF EXCHANGE. The law of England provides, that if the possessor of a Bill of Exchange fails to demand payment on the day on which it becomes due, he takes the responsibility, in case of its eventual non-payment, from the previous endorsers, and incurs it himself. This as a general rule may be just. A party may be able to pay to-day and unable a week hence; and if in such a case a loss arises by one man's negligence, it were manifestly unreasonable that it should be sustained by others. But if the acceptor becomes unable to pay a week or a month before the bill is due, the previous endorsers cannot in justice throw the loss upon the last possessor, even though he fails to present it on the appointed day. For why did the law make its provision? In order to secure persons from the loss of their property by the negligence of others over whom they had no control. But, in the supposed case, the loss is not occasioned by any such cause, and therefore the spirit of the law does not apply to it. You are insisting upon its literal, in opposition to its just, interpretation. Whether the Bill was presented on the right day or the wrong, makes no difference to the previous endorsers, and for such a case the law was not made. A similar rule of virtue applies to the case of giving notice of refusal to accept or to pay. If, in consequence of the want of this notice, the party is subjected to loss, he may avail himself of the legal exemption from the last possessor's claim. If the want of notice made no difference in his situation, he may not. MINORS' DEBTS.-A young man under twentyone years of age purchases articles of a tradesman, of which some are necessary and some are not. Payment for unnecessary articles cannot be enforced by the English law-the reason with the Legislature being this, that thoughtless youths might be practised upon by designing persons, and induced to make needless and extravagant purchases. But is the youth who purchases unnecessary articles with the promise to pay when he becomes of age, exempted from the obligation? Now it is to be remembered, generally, that this obligation is not founded upon the Law of the Land, and therefore that the law cannot dispense with it. But if the tradesman has actually taken advantage of the inexperience of a youth, to cajole him into debts of which he was not conscious of the amount or the impropriety, it does not appear that he is obliged to SHIPMENTS. The same principles apply to a cirpay them; and for this reason, that he did not, in cumstance which not unfrequently occurs amongst any proper sense of the term, come under an obli- men of business, and in which integrity is, I think, gation to pay them. In other cases, the obligation very commonly sacrificed to interest. A tradesman remains. The circumstance that the law will not in Falmouth is in the habit of purchasing goods of assist the creditor to recover the money, does not merchants in London, by whom the goods are fordispense with it. It is fit, no doubt, that these dis- warded in vessels to Falmouth. Now it is a rule of honourable tradesmen should be punished, though law founded upon established custom, that goods the mode of punishing them is exceptionable indeed. when shipped are at the risk of the buyer. The It operates as a powerful temptation to fraud in law, however, requires that an account of the shipyoung men, and it is a bad syst to discouragement shall be sent to the buyer by post, in order that, if he thinks proper, he may insure his goods: and in order to effect this object, the law directs, that if the account be not sent, and the vessel is wrecked, it will not enforce payment from the buyer. All this as a general rule is just. But in the actual transactions of business, goods are very frequently sent by sea by an expressed or tacit agreement between the parties without notice by the post. The Falmouth tradesman then is in the habit of thus conducting the matter for a series of years. He habitually orders his goods to be sent by ship, and the merchant, as habitually, with the buyer's knowledge, sends the invoice with them. Of course the buyer is not in the habit of insuring. At length a vessel is wrecked and a package is lost. When the merchant applies for payment, the tradesman says--" No; you sent no invoice by post: I shall not pay you, and I know you cannot compel me by law." Now this conduct I think is condemned by morality. The man in Falmouth does not suffer any loss in consequence of the want of notice. He would not have insured if he had received it; and therefore the intention of the Legislature in withholding its assistance from the merchant, was not to provide for such a case. Thus to take advantage of the law without regard to its intention is unjust. Besides, the custom of sending the invoice with the goods rather than by post, is for the advantage of the buyer only :-it saves him a shilling in postage. The understanding amongst men of business that the risk of loss at sea impends on buyers is so complete, that they habitually take that risk into account in the profits which they demand on their goods: sellers do not; and this again indicates the injustice of throwing the loss upon the seller when an accident happens at sea. -- Yet tradesmen, I believe, rarely practice any other justice than that which the law will enforce; as if not to be compelled by law were to be exempt from all moral obligation. It is hardly necessary to observe, that if the man in Falmouth was actually prevented from insuring by the want of an invoice by post, he has a claim of justice as well as of law upon the merchant in London. DISTRAINTS.-It is well known that in distraints for rent, the law allows the landlord to seize whatever goods he finds upon the premises, without enquiring to whom they belong. And this rule, like many others, is as good as a general rule can be; since an unprincipled tenant might easily contrive to make it appear that none of the property was his own, and thus the landlord might be irremediably defrauded. Yet the landlord cannot always virtuously act upon the rule of law. A tenant who expects a distraint to-morrow, and of whose profligacy a lodger in the house has no suspicion, secretly removes his own goods in the night, and leaves the lodger's to be seized by the bailiff. The landlord ought not, as a matter of course, to take these goods, and to leave a family perhaps without a table or a bed. The law indeed allows it; but benevolence, but probity, does not. A man came to a friend of mine and proposed to take a number of his sheep to graze. My friend agreed with him, and sent the sheep. The next day these sheep were seized by the man's landlord for rent. It was an artifice, preconcerted between the landlord and the tenant in order that the rent might be paid out of my friend's pocket! Did this landlord act justly? The reader 66 says No, he deserved a prison." And yet the seizure was permitted by the law; and if morality did not possess an authority superior to law, the seizure would have been just. Now, in less flagitious instances, the same regard to the dictates of morality is to be maintained notwithstanding the permissions of law. -The contrivers of this abandoned iniquity possessed the effrontery to come afterwards to the gentleman whom they had defrauded, to offer to compound the matter; to send back the sheep which were of the value perhaps of fifty pounds, if he would give them thirty pounds in money. He refused to countenance such wickedness by the remotest implication, and sent them away to enjoy all their plunder. Theoretically, perhaps no seizures are unjust when no fraud is practised by the landlord, because persons who entrust their property on the premises of another, are supposed to know the risk, and voluntarily to undertake it. But, in practice, this risk is often not thought of and not known. Besides, mere justice is not the only thing which a landlord has to take into account. The authority which requires us to be just, requires us to be compassionate and kind. And here, as in many other cases, it may be remarked, that the object of the law in allowing landlords to seize whatever they find, was to protect them from fraud, and not to facilitate the oppression of under-tenants and others. If the first tenant has practised no fraud, it seems a violation of the intention of the law, to enforce it against those who happen to have entrusted their property in his hands. up. UNJUST DEFENDANTS.-It does not present a very favourable view of the state of private principle, that there are so many who refuse justice to plaintiffs unless they are compelled to be just by the law. It is indisputable, that a multitude of suits are undertaken in order to obtain property or rights which the defendant knows he ought voluntarily to give Such a person is certainly a dishonest man. When the verdict is given against him, I regard him in the light of a convicted robber-differing from other robbers in the circumstance that he is tried at Nisi prius instead of the Crown bar. For what is the difference between him who takes what is another's and him who withholds it? This severity of censure applies to some who are sued for damages. A man who, whether by design or inad. vertency, has injured another, and will not compen. sate him unless he is legally compelled to do it, is surely unjust. Yet many of these persons seem to think that injury to property, or person, or character, entails no duty to make reparation except it be enforced. Why, the law does not create this duty, it only compels us to fulfil it. If the minds of such persons were under the influence of integrity, they would pay such debts without compulsion.This subject is one amongst the many upon which Public Opinion needs to be aroused and to be rectified. When our estimates of moral character are adjusted to individual probity of principle, some of those who now pass in society as creditable persons, will be placed at the same point on the scale of morality, as many of those who are consigned to a jail. EXTORTION. It is a very common thing for a creditor who cannot obtain payment from the person who owes him money, to practise a species of extortion upon his relations or friends. The man perhaps is insolvent and unable to pay, and the creditor threatens to imprison him in order to induce his friends to pay the money rather than allow him to be immured in a jail. This is not honest. Why should a person be deprived of his property because he has a regard for the reputation and comfort of another man? It will be said that the debtor's friends pay voluntarily; but it is only with that sort of willingness with which a traveller gives his purse to a footpad, rather than be violently assaulted or perhaps killed. Both the footpad and the creditor |