Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/303

 RICHARD CANTILLON 281 stand in the Gap," which meant that when the said pretended partner- ship was first established he then took upon him to be alone answer- able for the money they should raise by the sale of the aforesaid Actions, and in case that the said agreements or Bargains had happened to turn in fayour of your orator, 1 the said Lady Mary Herbert, and Mr. Gage, the said John Hughes was to run away or go to prison, and so the said Cantilion the elder in his said letter advised him to do to prevent his making good even what he had raised by the sale of the said Actions.... And your orator charges that the said Cantilion the elder established the said pretended Partnership on Premeditated Fraud, and that he endeavoured to skreen himself from being liable to answer for the transactions of the said John Hughes under the name of Cantilion and Hughes, for it is expressly stipulated in the articles of Partnership that Cantilion should not under any pretence or for any reason whatever be subjected to the debts of the said Partnership beyond the sum of 50,000 livres tournois which was at the time of no more value than about 1,250 sterling.' John Hughes (for Cantilion and Hughes) to Richard Cantilion: ' Paris, 22 November, 1722. We beg leave to assure you that you have no Loftus to deal with, and that we have no view of other Fortune or Livelyh0od than what shall immediately proceed from your Bounty.' This letter of Hughes is alleged to be'positive proof that he was in very indigent circumstances, and that the said Cantilion had him so much in his power that he might influence him to do any fraudulent or unreasonable Act he should think fit to put him upon . . and the said John Hughes' low circumstances were such that he would have been unable to make good to your orator, Lady Mary Herbert, and Joseph Gage, the value of the aforesaid Actions and French crowns in case the said A rrts had had their intended effect, or even to make good the money the Partnership raised by the sale.' The allegations of the widow Hughes are of a different cha- racter. Instead of referring to a 'pretended partnership,' she insists that the partnership was a real one between her husband and the elder Cantilion. Her husband had told her so; and it was incredible otherwise that Cantilion should have controlled the business as he did, sending daily instructions and inquiries to her husband, and very often express or special messengers from foreign countries at great expense. By the device of a separate account, Cantilion was able to 'lend money to several persons without the concurrence of the said John Hughes, and afterwards, when the said Debts were like to become desperate, caused the same to be set upon the Books of the said House at Paris, as if the said money had been lent out of the said Partner-  A Chancery Bill was in the form of a petition to the Lord Chancellor.