96 HEPBURN'S CASE.—3 BLAND.

the recovery of their claims. 1 am aware, that, from the language
used in such cases, the relief appears to have been granted as a
matter of grace; but it was a favor-so imperiously dictated by the
public opinion of the age, and the irresistible justice of the claims
of creditors, that what thus appears to have been glossed over as a
courtesy was, in truth, well understood, long before our Revolu-
tion, to have ripened into law and right; although no compulsion,
under such circumstances, could have been used against the Pro-
vince any more than against the State now.

It is obvious, therefore, that if the property of the Mollisons had
been taken into the treasury, according to the law as in force and
practice when the debt became due, and before the passage of the
Confiscation Acts, Hepburn would have had a well established and
effectual remedy for the recovery of his claim; a remedy of which .
he would have been bound to take notice, and one substantially
similar to, and altogether as effectual as that given him against
the administrator of his deceased debtor; because in such case the
State would have taken upon itself to stand as the administrator
for the benefit of creditors of the property of the debtor whose
estate it held. But it having been declared, that there ought to
be no forfeiture, except only on attainder of murder or treason;(d)
and provided by law, that no conviction should work a corruption
of blood or forfeiture of estate. 1809, ch. 138, s. 10. The whole
of this learning in relation to confiscation may be regarded as
now; and, it is to be hoped, forever entirely obsolete.

The first of our Revolutionary Confiscation Acts, as appears by
the marginal notes to most of the Acts, of the same session, was
* Passed until the second day of February, 1781, al-
115 though it is referred to as October, 1780, ch. 45. The en-
actments upon this subject are numerous, running through a series
of several years, and embracing a great variety of matter. But
in regard to this case, they need only to be considered so far as
they have a bearing upon the means which, but lor them, Hepburn
would have had, or which they gave him of recovering his claim
due from the Mollisons. That they changed his remedies, in some
respects, is clear; but did they not give him others as effectual as
those which they virtually destroyed? And did they place in
obscurity, or remove beyond his reach, any part of the estate of
his debtors against which he might before have had recourse
These are the only questions.

It is admitted on all hands, that the Mollisons, who were then
living, were not brought within the scope of those laws, as trai-

(d) Decla. of Rights, Art. 4. Peter Shuman having been convicted of
treason, and executed in the year 1781, the General Assembly released the
right of the State to his real and personal estate, and vested the whole in his
widow and eleven children, 1796, ch. 15.