lay them to pledge; he keeps the money, and the statute shall fetch
away the goods to help forward the composition. These are tricks I
can give too good an account of, having more than once suffered by
the experiment. I could give a scheme, of more ways, but I think it
is needless to prove the necessity of laying aside that law, which
is pernicious to both debtor and creditor, and chiefly hurtful to
the honest man whom it was made to preserve.

The next inquiry is, whether the extremities of this law are not
often carried on beyond the true intent and meaning of the act
itself, for malicious and private ends to gratify passion and
revenge?

I remember the answer a person gave me, who had taken out statutes
against several persons, and some his near relations, who had failed
in his debt; and when I was one time dissuading him from prosecuting
a man who owed me money as well as him, I used this argument with
him:- "You know the man has nothing left to pay." "That's true,"
says he; "I know that well enough." "To what purpose, then," said
I, "will you prosecute him?" "Why, revenge is sweet," said he. Now
a man that will prosecute a debtor, not as a debtor, but by way of
revenge, such a man is, I think, not intentionally within the
benefit of our law.

In order to state the case right, there are four sorts of people to
be considered in this discourse; and the true case is how to
distinguish them,

1. There is the honest debtor, who fails by visible necessity,
losses, sickness, decay of trade, or the like.