HEPBURN'S CASE.—3 BLAND. 87

That entry, as it stands, purports to be an admission of the re-
ceipt by Samuel C. Hepburn of £260, as a payment from the Mol-
lisons, in part of a pre-existing debt due from them. It makes
*not the slightest allusion to any contingency upon which it .104
was to be considered as a payment or not; it does not inti-
mate, that it was the proceeds of the sale of a bill of exchange,
or anything else, which might or might not be deemed a payment,
according to circumstances; but simply affirms the fact of a pay-
ment of the specified amount having been made on that day by the
debtors to their creditor, and nothing more. It is by no means
sufficient, as has been contended, to correct the mere date of the
entry, in order to reconcile it with the bill; the whole sense of its
language must also be so changed to convey the idea, that it was
not merely a payment, but the receipt of the proceeds of the sale of
the bill of exchange for the benefit of the testator's estate, which
might eventually be a payment, or by which the estate might be
involved in much loss. Nothing of the kind is, however, inti-
mated. To sustain the petitioner on this ground, it is necessary
that this entry in its date, sense, and substance should be altered,
contradicted, and falsified.

If the petitioner were competent thus to impeach his own evi-
dence, the mistake or untruth should be shewn in the clearest and
most satisfactory manner; but here he has offered, for that purpose,
nothing more than inferences and plausible conjectures deduced
from dates, sameness of amount, and the circumstance, that so
many different items of the account could not have belonged to the
same date.

As to the improbability of the payment in the year 1779; be-
cause of the interruption of all intercourse between this country
and England by the war, it will be sufficient to remark, supposing
the fact to ha\e been so, that the Mollisons had a very large
amount of debts and property in this State, and that at least two
of their former agents remained here during the whole war, one of
whom there is reason to believe; from the transactions in relation
to the special Acts of Assembly of 1782, was certainly faithful and
as active as he could be during the time and in the peculiar cir-
cumstances.

There is, however, nothing which shews that Samuel C. Hep-
burn, the drawer of the bill of exchange, seriously intended it
should be considered as a transaction properly and exclusively be-
longing to the estate of his testator. The bill itself indicates on
what fund it was drawn; but nothing more; and there can be no
doubt, that the executor intended thus to collect a part of the
assets of his testator. But if he had meant it should be consid-
ered as * altogether an affair of his testator's estate, he 105
would certainly have so expressed himself; and it was his

duty, most distinctly to set forth that intention, if the facts were