258 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

But it is said, that though the mere giving the acceptances
would not extinguish the antecedent debt, yet that an express
agreement to that effect would produce such extinguishment,
and that the receipt given by Wm. Harness, in this case, is suf-
ficient evidence of such agreement.

It is to be recollected, however, that it was not the bill or
note of a third person, which was given for the debt of the
company, but its own acceptance, and consequently no addi-
tional security was obtained.

A creditor might be well presumed to give up his claim upon
his original debtor, upon receiving the obligation of a third
person, in whose solvency he had greater confidence, but it is
very difficult to assign a reason, and certainly no authority has
been produced to show a motive to induce a creditor to surren-
der his right to resort to his original cause of action, upon
merely receiving from his debtor an obligation of equal dignity.

The receipt in this case I do not understand to amount to an
express agreement to look exclusively to the acceptances, and
to abandon any right which the complainants may have had to
insist on payment of the money, before their land was used for
the purposes of the canal. It would not, in my judgment,
amount to an extinguishment or payment of the precedent debt,
even if the acceptances had been those of a third party, and a
fortiori, cannot have that effect when they are merely the en-
gagement of the original debtor.

The opinion of the Court of Appeals, in the case of Glenn vs.
Smith, 2 G. & J., 493, and the case of Putnam, vs. Lewis, 8
Johnsfin^s Reports, 389, cited with approbation by the Court of
Appeals, are, I think, conclusive upon the question.

The defendants, however, insist, that even if the giving and
receiving the acceptances will not have the effect contended
for, still, when judgment was obtained upon those acceptances
there was a merger of the original indebtedness, and the remedy
of the complainants is only upon the judgment.

If, however, the inquisition of the jury, when returned to and
affirmed by the court, constitutes a debt at all, it is a debt of
record, and of equal grade with the judgment. The terms of