Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/241

230 

1788.

in order to accomplifh the rules of juftice ; as in the inftance of contracts entered into in other countries,or of bargains which are unlawful in a foreign nation, of which both debtor and creditor are members and fubjects. ''Prin. oƒ Eq'' 363. 1 ''Black. Rep.'' 234. 250. But ftill, in all thefe exceptions, the foreign ftatutes as ʃuch  have no coercive authority extra territorium,  but are received only by confent as far as they are neceffary to juftice.

He then contended from the facts, that the Defendant did not come within the principle of any of the cafes referred to, for, as the Plaintiff was not a fubject of Maryland, it cannot be pretended that either by himfelf or his reprefentatives, he has confented to the Defendant's difcharge, or rather to the law, by which that difcharge was authorized ; that, as between the Plaintiff and Defendant, the place of the contract, which the law materially  was Philadelphia  where the merchants to whom the money was, in fact, payable, refided ; and that even if the contract has been made in Maryland, the Defendant would not be in a better condition on that account, as the law under which he was difcharged, was enacted feveral years afterwards, and, therefore, could not have been in the contemplation of the parties in making their agreement.

He urged, likewife, the inconveniences that would attend the adverfe doctrine, from a variety of confiderations. Suppofe there had been no bankrupt law in Pennʃylvania, and that, in truth, our Legiflature difapproved of it, yet, every debtors by going into Maryland  and complying with the terms of their General Act, or, perhaps, by virtue of a fpecial one, might obtain a  which, it is contended, would make laws for us, not only without her confent, but contrary to our interior policy. Again, if no other notice is required than an advertifment in a Maryland newspaper, which the citizens of Pennʃylvania feldom read, the may be fhared among the creditors prefent, fo the execution or the abfent, who, at the fame time, have been guilty of fraud or negligence, but, if they had been apprized of the tranfaction, might have fuggefted fuch circumftances of fraud, as would prevent the granting the very certificate, which is fet up as a conclufive bar to their juft demands. In England the king is not bound by the bankrupt laws 1 Atk. 303. and fhall we be bound, who are not in any degree connected with the government that made them? If Maryland had given a preference to her own citizens in the diftribution of an infolvent's, or a bankrupt's eftate, ought we, who are ftrangers, to be affected by the certificate of difcharge, though we derive no benefit from the furrender of property ? Where, or how, is the line to be drawn? If, indeed, the certificate is to be univerfally operative, fo ought the affignment of the bankrupt's eftate to be, fince the words of the bankrupt laws are in this refpect, as comprehenfive and forcible, as in that, and yet it is an eftablifhed doctrine, that the affignment is only binding in the ftate in which the commiffior iffues.Doug. 160. The act of Maryland