is a statute against you; which run the poor man to such extremities
that he destroyed himself. Nothing is more frequent than for men
who are reduced by miscarriage in trade to compound and set up again
and get good estates; but a statute, as we call it, for ever shuts
up all doors to the debtor's recovery, as if breaking were a crime
so capital that he ought to be cast out of human society and exposed
to extremities worse than death. And, which will further expose the
fruitless severity of this law, it is easy to make it appear that
all this cruelty to the debtor is so far, generally speaking, from
advantaging the creditors, that it destroys the estate, consumes it
in extravagant charges, and unless the debtor be consenting, seldom
makes any considerable dividends. And I am bold to say there is no
advantage made by the prosecuting of a statute with severity, but
what might be doubly made by methods more merciful. And though I am
not to prescribe to the legislators of the nation, yet by way of
essay I take leave to give my opinion and my experience in the
methods, consequences, and remedies of this law.

All people know, who remember anything of the times when that law
was made, that the evil it was pointed at was grown very rank, and
breaking to defraud creditors so much a trade, that the parliament
had good reason to set up a fury to deal with it; and I am far from
reflecting on the makers of that law, who, no question, saw it was
necessary at that time. But as laws, though in themselves good, are
more or less so, as they are more or less seasonable, squared, and
adapted to the circumstances and time of the evil they are made
against; so it were worth while (with submission) for the same
authority to examine:

1. Whether the length of time since that act was made has not given