84 HEPBURN'S CASE.—3 BLAND.

turned over to the Chancellor to adjudicate upon; and hence, dis-
carding the mere forms and modes of proceeding by which contro-
versies are brought before this Court, and prepared for final decision
and nothing more, the case must be heard and disposed of accord-
ing to the substantial principles of equity, as if it had been brought
here pursuant to the regular course of proceeding. And, conse-
quently, without any reference to the mere forms peculiar to this
Court, the claim must be considered on its merits; that is, as a
common controversy between a creditor and debtor, merely put-
ting the State in the place of the Mollisons; but giving to the
creditor every advantage he ought to have, upon the ground that
the Acts of the State, if any such there be, have embarrassed,
postponed, or destroyed his remedy against his debtors, the Mol-
lisons, without affording him another equally efficient.

Proceeding then, to consider this ease as one, which like all
others, legally submitted to the Chancellor for adjudication, must
be governed by the principles of law and equity arising out of the
facts of which it is composed, it will be necessary in the first place
to gather up all those facts, and exhibit them in their proper order.
The case as to facts stands thus:

It appears that William and Robert Mollison, merchants resi-
dent in London, were sometime before and until about the year
1775, *very extensively engaged in trade to this country;
101 that they had five separate stores in Maryland managed by
agents; some of whom, without being publicly acknowledged as
such, continued to reside here during the Revolutionary War; and
after the peace of 1783, they had, in this country, several active
and openly acknowledged agents, charged with the settlement of
their former commercial affairs. That the Mollisons had, so long
as they carried on their trade, large consignments of tobacco made
to them from time to time by various persons of Maryland; and
had debts due to them by a number of persons here, to a very
large amount; that they suspended their payments about the year
1776; but some of their creditors received payments on account of
claims against them as late as the year 1793.

It further appears, that the late John Hepburn, during his life-
time, had shipped several parcels of tobacco to them; that Hep-
burn made his will and died some time in the 3^ear 1775, in Prince
George's County, leaving Samuel C. Hepburn as his executor, who
acted as such accordingly; that the Mollisons, by their letters, ad-
mitted themselves to be indebted, on the 1st of April, 1776, to the
estate of the late John Hepburn, on account of shipments of tobacco,
to the amount of £316 sterling, equal to $1,404.44 of our present
legal money; that the executor Samuel C. Hepburn, on the loth
of March, 1776, drew a bill of exchange in favor of Philip Thomas
upon the Mollisons for the sum of £260 sterling, directing in the
bill itself, that the same should be placed to the account of the