102 HEPBURN'S CASE.—3 BLAND.

mies by which the remedy of their creditor Hepburn could have
been in any degree affected. Hepburn might have proceeded by
attachment at any time after his debt became due on the first of
April, 1776, except within that short period during which, by the
coarse of the Revolution, the Courts of justice were closed; and
which it was declared should not be considered as a part of the
time limited for bringing any action. February, 1777, ch. 15, s.
7.

But apart from the general principles of law in relation to this
matter, it appears from the docket entries of the late General Court,
that there were several attachments actually laid in the hands of
Mollison's debtors during the war and before the peace of 1783;
and besides, Hepburn's right to proceed by attachment against the
property of the Mollisons here, at, the time they were non-resident
alien enemies, has been repeatedly recognized and affirmed in ex-
press terms by the Confiscation Acts themselves, already noticed, as
well as by those I shall now proceed to consider.

The Act of October, 1780, ch. 5, s. 11, is in many respects an
enactment of a very unusual and equivocal character. It autho-
rized debtors of British subjects, such as the Mollisons then were,
upon certain conditions and under certain regulations to pay the
debts so due from them into the treasury. And many debts were
so paid in accordingly. Upon which it afterwards became the
subject of much litigation in the Courts of justice, and of long-
negotiation between the two nations to determine in what light
those payments were to be considered as between those debtors
and their creditors. It was finally determined, that as between
them, such payments into the treasury were not to be deemed a
satisfaction of those debts in any way. Dulany v. Wells, 3 H. &
McH. 20; The State of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 Dall. 1; Ware v.
Hylton, NB 7 Fall.199; The Commonwealth v. Walker, Hen. & Mun.
144; 4 Secret Jour. Cong. 200; 6 Southern Review, 498. And, in
consequence * of that final determination, Maryland, by
122 sundry resolutions, authorized the debtors to withdraw the
amounts paid by them, respectively. Resol. 1797. No. 14 and 15;
Resol. 1798, No. 30; 4 Secret Jour. Cong. 200. But all that relates
to this view of the subject of this enactment is entirely foreign to
the matter now under consideration.

This eleventh section of the Act of October, 1780, ch. 5, applied
to nothing but the debts due to the Mollisons from the citizens
of Maryland; under which it appears, that some of their debtors
actually made payments into the treasury during the year 1781, to
the amount of about $9,000; and the Acts of April, 1782, ch. 46,
and November. 1782, ch. 18, which, as it would seem, have been
erroneously treated as private Acts, after reciting that Thomas Con-
tee has been the factor and agent of the Mollisons, clothes him
with full power to collect all debts due to them, for the benefit of