380 FARM. BK. OF MARYLAND'S CASE.—2 BLAND.

sold, or that a credit for the amount of them be given on said judg-
ment.

BLAND, C.,15th March, 18,30.—This case having been submitted
on the bill and answer alone without argument, the proceedings
were read and considered.

The whole matter in controversy turns upon what may be deemed
the true construction of the last clause in the section set forth in
the defendant's answer of the Act by which this institution has
been incorporated. The seventeenth section of that Act declares,
that "it would greatly tend to promote the agricultural and manu-
facturing interests if this bank should be authorized to make loans
on more extended principles than have heretofore been adopted by
similar institutions in this State;" and then proceeds to enact,
that this bank shall be authorized to open cash accounts, and
make loans on a more than usually liberal mode, as therein pre-
scribed; provided they obtain such reasonable personal or landed
security as they may require.

* There is nothing in this section which directly relates to
396 the transfer of the stock of the institution; but it manifests
the enlarged spirit of accommodation in which its affairs were pro-
posed to be conducted, and the liberal manner in which money
might be obtained from it. Loans were to be made upon reason-
able personal or landed security; and the directors were to be
clothed with ample power to lend upon those terms. Considering
this authority to make loans upon more extended principles, it is
obvious, that according to the spirit of its charter, the institution
should not only be authorized to require reasonable security in the
first instance, but that it should also be allowed to lay hold of every
just means of obtaining satisfaction from its litigious or delinquent
debtors. This, I am satisfied, was the true intention and sole
object of this provision of the twentieth section of the Act of its
incorporation as set forth in the defendant's answer. It was in-
tended to give to the bank a mortgage or lien on its stock: held by
that class of its debtors and nothing more. Child v. Hudson's Bay
Company, 2 P. Will, 207.

If, as is alleged by the answer, the debt must be first paid, before
the body politic can be allowed to transfer any stock so held; or
the president and directors are bound, in behalf of the company,
to retain: the stock until the debt is actually and fully paid, the very
end in view, as is demonstrable from this case, may be defeated;
and the debt may never be paid or collected. Here it is alleged
by the administrator, and not denied, that he has not a sufficiency
of assets to pay all; he is not therefore bound to pay the entire
of any one debt; nor indeed is he allowed to apply the assets in
satisfaction of any one debt exclusively; or in any other manner
than in due proportion to all; and consequently, the condition on