lecting the debts, and selling the goods, which may be difficult, if
they will leave it to him to do it, he will undertake to pay
them--shillings in the pound, and stand to the hazard both of debts and
goods.

Having thus offered the creditors their choice, if they accept the
proposal of a certain sum, as sometimes I know they have chosen to do,
rather than to have the trouble of making assignees, and run the hazard
of the debts, when put into lawyers' hands to collect, and of the goods,
to sell them by appraisement; if, I say, they choose this, and offer to
discharge the debtor upon payment, suppose it be of ten or twelve
shillings in the pound in money, within a certain time, or on giving
security for the payment; then, indeed, the debtor is discharged in
conscience, and may lawfully and honestly take the remainder as a gift
given him by his creditors for undertaking their business, or securing
the remainder of their debt to them--I say, the debtor may do this with
the utmost satisfaction to his conscience.

But without thus putting it into the creditors' choice, it is a force
upon them to offer them any thing less than the utmost farthing that he
is able to pay; and particularly to pretend to make an offer as if it
were his utmost, and, as is usual, make protestations that it is the
most he is able to pay (indeed, every offer of a composition is a kind
of protestation that the debtor is not able to pay any more)--I say, to
offer thus, and declare he offers as much as possible, and as much as
the effects he has left will produce, if his effects are able to produce
more, he is then a cheat; for he acts then like one that stands at bay
with his creditors, make an offer, and if the creditors do not think fit
to accept of it, they must take what methods they think they can take to
get more; that is to say, he bids open defiance to their statutes and
commissions of bankrupt, and any other proceedings: like a town
besieged, which offers to capitulate and to yield upon such and such
articles; which implies, that if those articles are not accepted, the
garrison will defend themselves to the last extremity, and do all the
mischief to the assailants that they can.

Now, this in a garrison-town, I say, may be lawful and fair, but in a
debtor to his creditor it is quite another thing: for, as I have said
above, the debtor has no property in the effects which he has in his
hands; they are the goods and the estate of the creditor