Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/384

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discharge in any instance ?^ — because it is founded on the laws of the country. A receipt given in conse- quence of a payment in coin, is a legal discharge, only because the laws of tJie country make it so. I ask then why a receipt given in consequence of a payment into the treasury, be not of equal validity, since it has pre- cisely the same foundation? It is expressly constituted a discharge by a legislature having competent authority. This debt therefore, having been legally paid by the contractor, was not due from him at the time of making the treaty, and therefore is not within the intention of that instrument. But, say the gentlemen on the other side, the one payment has the consent of the creditor, and the other has not: he who paid coin has the creditor's consent to the discliarge, but he who paid money into the treasury, wants it. Have we not satis- fied this honourable court, that the govei^ning power had a right to put itself in the place of the British sub- jects? Having had an unquestionable right to confiscate, sequester, or modify those debts as they pleased, they had an equally indubitable right to substitute themselves in the stead of the plaintiff, otherwise those authorities have been quoted in vain.'" He then cites authorities to prove, that the law of the place governs the contract; and concludes, that the payment into the treasuiy hav- ing in this instance, been made in consequence of a law of this commonwealth, which was strictly conso- nant w ith the laws of nations, and which had declared that such payment should operate as a complete and final discharge, this was not a subsisting debt, within the contemplation of the treaty, and remained therefore, wholly unaffected by it.

The next question w^as, whether this court could take notice of this infraction of die treaty, on the part of

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