, and think that I am moving
tradesmen to be easy and compassionate to rogues and cheats: I am far
from it, and have given sufficient testimony of the contrary; having, I
assure you, been the only person who actually formed, drew up, and first
proposed that very cause to the House of Commons, which made it felony
to the bankrupt to give in a false account. It cannot, therefore, be
suggested, without manifest injustice, that I would with one breath
prompt creditors to be easy to rogues, and to cheating fraudulent
bankrupts, and with another make a proposal to have them hanged.

But I move the creditor, on account of his own interest, always to take
the first offer, if he sees no palpable fraud in it, or sees no reason
to suspect such fraud; and my reason is good, namely, because I believe,
as I said before, it is generally the best.

I know there is a new method of putting an end to a tradesman's
troubles, by that which was formerly thought the greatest of all
troubles; I mean a fraudulent method, or what they call taking out
friendly statutes; that is, when tradesmen get statutes taken out
against themselves, moved first by some person in kindness to them, and
done at the request of the bankrupt himself. This is generally done
when the circumstances of the debtor are very low, and he has little or
nothing to surrender; and the end is, that the creditors may be obliged
to take what there is, and the man may get a full discharge.

This is, indeed, a vile corruption of a good law, and turning the edge
of the act against the creditor, not against the debtor; and as he has
nothing to surrender, they get little or nothing, and the man is as
effectually discharged as if he had paid twenty shillings in the pound;
and so he is in a condition to set up again, take fresh credit, break
again, and have another commission against him; and so round, as often
as he thinks fit. This, indeed, is a fraud upon the act, and shows that
all human wisdom is imperfect, that the law wants some repairs, and that
it will in time come into consideration again, to be made capable of
disappointing the people that intend to make such use of it.

I think there is also wanting a law against twice breaking, and that all
second commissions should have some penalty upon the bankrupt, and a
third a farther penalty, and if the fourth brought the man to the
gallows, it could not be thought hard; for he that has set up and broke,
and set up again, and broke