PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

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with that money, he makes no part of his care, nor
observes to be as much his duty as the other; such
as selling a family seat, or a family estate, contracting
his plan of expense, laving down his equipage, reducing
the number of his servants, or any of these
humiliating sacrifices, which just.ice requires of a man
in debt, the moment he percei,rcs 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 satisfy an honest m~..n,
if a better provision be in his po\ver; for it is a
breach of faith to subiect a creditor, ,,-hen We can
hdp it, to the risk of our Efe, be the event what it
will; tIlat not being the security to which credit
•
was gIven.
I kno\v few subjects which have been more misunder"tood
that1 t~e law which authorizes the imprisonment
of insolvent ~ebtors. It h3:s been represented
as a gratuitous cruelty," which contributed
nothing to the reparation of the creditor's loss, or
to the advantage (,f the community. This prejudice
arises principally from considering the sending of a
dEbtor to jail, as an act of private satisfaction to the
creditor 1 irlsti~ad of a pub1ic puni~llment. As an act
of sadsfaction or revenge, it is always wrong in the
motive, and often intemperate and undistinguisbing
in th,: Exercise, Consider it as a public punishment,
founded upon the same reason, and subject to the
same rules, as other punishments; and the j.ustice of
it" together with the degree to which it should be
extended, and the objects upon whom it may be inflicted.
will be apparent. There are frauds relating
to irls,-"Itvency, against \vhich it is as necessary to provide
punishment, as for any public crimes whatever;
a: where a man gets your money into his possession,
and forthwith runs away with it; or what is little
better, squanders it in vicious eXllenses; or stakes it
at the gaming table; in the alley"; or upon wild ad ..
ventures in trade; or is COIlsciollS at the tinle he
borrows it, that he can never repay it; or wilfully