Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/386

 366 Trat'erse. ^Resisting EMenis. [Ch.XIil. Sec«IlI* vides, *' that if any person, of whom any such {a) debt or duty shall be demanded or required (6), allege, plead, declare or shew, in any of the said Courts, good, perfect, and sufficient cause, and matter in law, reason, or good conscience, in bar or discharge of the said debt or duty ; or why such person ought not to be charged or chargeable to or with the same ; and the same cause or matter so alleged, pleaded, declared or shewed, sufficiently proved in such one of the said Courts as he shall be impleaded, sued, vexed, or troubled for the same, that then the said Courts, and every of them, shall have full power and authority to accept, adjudge, and allow the same proof, and wholly and clearly to acquit and discharge every person that shall be so impleaded, sued, vexed, or troubled for the same." With respect to the subject-matter (c) of defence to the debt on which the extent is founded, there is nothing very peculiar in the case of pleading to Crown process. The defendant's inability to plead the statute of limitation, a set off(rf), bank- ruptcy (^), insolvency (y), solvit post diem{g), the statute of frauds, or any other defence given by statutes, by which the King, not being named, is not bound (A), forms substantially the only exception from the general law of pleading defences to debts between subject and subject. The defendant in the case of an extent, may plead non est factum, or performance (i), if the Crown claim a debt on a specialty ; and, in the case of a simple contract debt, though it become a record by the inquisi- tion {k), the defendant, under the general issue, non indebitatus modo et forma (Z), may dispute the debt, or give in evidence any defence, except those above mentioned. Nor could the Crown, before the statute 58 Geo. 3. c. 93. (w), enforce the (a) It relates to all debts due to the 1 Price, 23. West, 199. Post. 368, n. (c). Crown. 7 Co. R. 19. (e) Anie, 2S4. {b) It will be observed, that the (/) Ibid, clause only extends to pleadings by (g) 1 Price, 23. Crown debtor, not to pleadings by a (A) By Mhat statates the Kin^ i* stranger claiming property and notdis- bound, post, ch. 382 to 384. puting the debt. (i) Trem. 584, 608. (c) Form of pleading, see the En- {k) West, 200. tries, and West, 194, &c. Tidd's App. (/) Ibid. 199. Trem. PI. Cr,583, tit. Extent. (m) See 4 Price, 50. {d) Rex V. Copland, Hughes, 204. payment