granted him, of being free and discharged for ever from all debts owing by him at the time he became a bankrupt.

But if any creditor produces a fictitious debt, and the bankrupt does not make discovery of it, but suffers the fair creditors to be imposed upon, he loses all title to these advantages. Neither can he claim them if he has given with any of his children above L. 100. for a marriage portion, unless he had at that time sufficient left to pay all his debts, or if he has lost at any one time L.5. or in the whole L. 100. within a twelvemonth before he became a bankrupt, by any manner of gaming or wagering whatsoever or within the same time has lost to the value of L. 100. by stock-jobbing. Also, such as have been once cleared by a commission of bankrupt, or have been delivered by an act of insolvency, and afterwards become bankrupts again, unless they pay full fifteen shillings in the pound, are only thereby indemnified as to the confinement of their bodies, but any future estate they shall acquire remains liable to their creditors, excepting their necessary apparel, household goods, and the tools and implements of their trades.

4. How such proceedings affect or transfer the estate and property of the bankrupt. The method whereby a real estate, in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, may be transferred by bankruptcy, was shewn under its proper head in a former chapter. At present we are only to consider the transfer of things personal by this operation of law.

All the personal estate and effects of the bankrupt are considered as vested, by the act of bankruptcy, in the future assignees of his commissioners, whether they be goods in actual possession, or debts, contracts, and other choses in action; and the commissioners by their warrant may cause any house or tenement of the bankrupt to be broke open, in order to enter upon and seize the same. And when the assignees are chosen or approved by the creditors, the commissioners are to assign every thing over to them, and the property of every part of the estate is thereby as fully vested in them, as it was in the bankrupt himself, and they have the same remedies to recover it.

The property vested in the assignees is the whole that the bankrupt had in himself, at the time he committed the first act of bankruptcy; or that has been vested in him since, before his debts are satisfied or agreed for. Insomuch that all transactions of the bankrupt are from that time absolutely null and void, either with regard to the alienation of his property, or the receipt of his debts from such as are privy to his bankruptcy; for they are no longer his property or his debts, but those of the future assignees. And, if an execution be sued out, but not served and executed on the bankrupt's effects till after the act of bankruptcy, it is void as against the assignees. But the king is not bound by this fictitious relation, nor is within the statutes of bankrupts, for if, after the act of bankruptcy, committed, and before the assignment of his effects, an extent issues for the

debt of the crown, the goods are bound thereby. But as acts of bankruptcy may sometimes be secret to all but a few, it is provided by statute 19 Geo.II. c. 32. that no money paid by a bankrupt to a boná fide or real creditor, in a course of trade, even after an act of bankruptcy done, shall be liable to be refunded. Nor, by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 15. shall any debtor of a bankrupt, that pays him his debt, without knowing of his bankruptcy, be liable to account for it again.

The assignees may pursue any legal method of recovering this property so vested in them, by their own authority, but cannot commence a suit in equity, nor compound any debts owing to the bankrupt, nor refer any matters to arbitration, without the consent of the creditors, or the major part of them in value, at a meeting to be held in pursuance of notice in the Gazette.

When they have gotten in all the effects they can reasonably hope for, and reduced them to ready money, the assignees must, after four and within twelve months after the commission issued, give one and twenty days notice to the creditors of a meeting for a dividend or distribution; at which time they must produce their accounts, and verify them upon oath, if required. And then the commissioners shall direct a dividend to be made at so much in the pound, to all creditors who have before proved, or shall then prove, their debts. This dividend must be made equally, and in a rateable proportion, to all the creditors, according to the quantity of their debts, no regard being had to the

quality of them. Mortgages indeed, for which the creditor has a real security in his own hands, are entirely safe, for the commission of bankrupt reaches only the equity of redemption. So are also personal debts, where the creditor has a chattel in his hands, as a pledge or pawn for the payment, or has taken the debtor's lands or goods in execution. And, upon the equity of the statute 8 Ann. c. 14. (which directs, that upon all executions of goods being on any premises demised to a tenant, one year's rent and no more, shall, if due, be paid to the landlord) it hath also been held, that under a commission of bankrupt, which is in the nature of a statute execution, the landlord shall be allowed his arrears of rent to the same amount, in preference to other creditors, even though he hath neglected to distrain, while the goods remained on the premises, which he is otherwise entitled to do for his entire rent, be the quantum what it may.

Within eighteen months after the commission issued, a second and final dividend shall be made, unless all the effects were exhausted by the first. And if any surplus remains, after selling his estates and paying every creditor his full debt, it shall be restored to the bankrupt.

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF TITLE BY TESTAMENT AND ADMINISTRATION.

THERE yet remain two other methods of acquiring personal estates, viz. by testament and administration. According to law, every person hath full power and liberty to make a will, that is not under some special prohibition by law or custom : which prohibitions are principally upon three accounts: for want of sufficient discretion; for want of sufficient liberty and free-will; and on account of their criminal conduct.

1. In the first species are to be reckoned infants, under the age of fourteen if males, and twelve if females; so that no objection can be admitted to the will of an infant of fourteen, merely for want of age: but, if the testator was not of sufficient discretion, whether at the age of fourteen or four and twenty, that will overthrow his testament. Madmen, or otherwise non compotes, idiots or natural fools, persons grown childish by reason of old age or distemper, such as have their senses besotted with drunkenness,-all these are incapable, by reason of mental disability, to make any will so long as such disability lasts.

To this class also may be referred such persons as are born deaf, blind, and dumb; who, as they have always wanted the common inlets of understanding, are incapable of having animum testandi, and their testaments are therefore void.