1788.
in order to accomplish the rules of justice; as in the instance of contracts entered into in other countries, or of bargains which are unlawful in a foreign nation, of which both debtor and creditor are members and subjects. Prin. of Eq. 363. 1 Black. Rep. 234. 250. But still, in all these exceptions, the foreign statutes as such have no coercive authority extra territorium, but are received only by consent as far as they are necessary to justice.
He then contended from the facts, that the Defendant did not come within the principle of any of the cafes referred to, for, as the Plaintiff was not a subject of Maryland, it cannot be pretended that either by himself or his representatives, he has consented to the Defendant's discharge, or rather to the law, by which that discharge was authorized; that, as between the Plaintiff and Defendant, the place of the contract, which the law materially regards, was Philadelphia where the merchants to whom the money was, in fact, payable, resided; and that even if the contract has been made in Maryland, the Defendant would not be in a better condition on that account, as the law under which he was discharged, was enacted several years afterwards, and, therefore, could not have been in the contemplation of the parties in making their agreement.
He urged, likewise, the inconveniences that would attend the adverse doctrine, from a variety of considerations. Suppose there had been no bankrupt law in Pennsylvania, and that, in truth, our Legislature disapproved of it, yet, every debtors by going into Maryland and complying with the terms of their General Act, or, perhaps, by virtue of a special one, might obtain a certificate which, it is contended, would make laws for us, not only without her consent, but contrary to our interior policy. Again, if no other notice is required than an advertisement in a Maryland newspaper, which the citizens of Pennsylvania seldom read, the spoils may be shared among the creditors present, so the execution or the absent, who, at the fame time, have been guilty of no fault or negligence, but, if they had been apprized of the transaction, might have suggested such circumstances of fraud, as would prevent the granting the very certificate, which is set up as a conclusive bar to their just demands. In England the king is not bound by the bankrupt laws, 1 Atk. 303. and shall we be bound, who are not in any degree connected with the government that made them? If Maryland had given a preference to her own citizens in the distribution of an insolvent's, or a bankrupt's estate, ought we, who are strangers, to be affected by the certificate of discharge, though we derive no benefit from the surrender of property? Where, or how, is the line to be drawn? If, indeed, the certificate is to be universally operative, so ought the assignment of the bankrupt's estate to be, since the words of the bankrupt laws are in this respect, as comprehensive and forcible, as in that, and yet it is an established doctrine, that the assignment is only binding in the state in which the commission issues. Doug. 160. The act ofMaryland
