Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/170

Rh 

1785.

an inhabitant fhould be fo long as to give him the rights of citizenfhip– to wit, for twelve months. And we fhould have no heftitation in laying this down as a rule, if it were not for thofe cafes of difpute which may arife between creditors on a domeʃtic attachment, and creditors on ƒoreign   attachments, where  it may frequently happen that the debtors's refidence may be lefs than 12 months, and yet he may, and ought, to be an object of the domeftic attachment law, fo as to have his effects divided among all his creditors, and not fwept awa by the firft creditor who takes out a foreign attachment But in cafes where a ftranger comes among us, and remains here for a fhort time, and then goes away under fuch circumftances, as not to make him as object of the domeʃtic  attachment, it will always have confiderable weight with us, that he has not refided here for twelve months.

In Knox's cafe his refidence here was only eight or nine months ; the family he left behind him, does not appear to be of a kind to denote an uneqivocal continuation of his refidence, being probably no more than was fufficient for his partner Henderʃon's own accommodation as a fingle man.

The ʃecond question is, whether there has been fuch proof of a debt due, as is fufficient to fhew a caufe of action ?

And here it will be proper to mention the reafon and occafion of making the rules with regard to proofs neceffary for holding to bail on 'writs of capias. When I came into this Court, I found a practice had lately taken place of requiring proofs of the debt, fimilar to thofe required by the ftatute of 12 G.I. fo as to difable abfent plaintiffs from holding defendants to bail,  for want of a pofitive affidavit before one of the judges of this Court of a fubfifting debt. I confidered this practice as not founded in law, and as tending to injure the credit of the country. That it was not founded in law I took to be clear, from the words of our act of Affembly, made fhortly after the revolution, extending only fuch of the ftatute laws of England as had thereƒore been in force in Pennʃylvania.  The act of 12 G.I.  was certainly not in force, nor ever practiced un, before me, thought there was good reafon to keep up a kind of reciprocity between England and us, upon this fubject, and not being willing to relax the rule totally, it became neceffary in order to preferve a uniformity of determination in the feveral judges of the Court, to fettle another mode, fo as to avoid extending an act of Parliament by their authority, which had not been extended by the Legiflature, and yet not to give the inhabitants of that country the fame eafy method of proving their debts to England before the Lord Mayor, or other magiftrate there, which had been practifed previous to the revolution under their own acts of Parliament. A middle way was, therefore, ftruck out ; and fignature of the party to fome inftrument of writing, or fome letter, or acknowledgment of