342 CHASE v. MANHARDT.

day they would have become due if they had been given. Con-
sequently Chose must be,, charged with interest from the 17th of
January 1813, the day when the notes would have become due had
they been given aa they should have been, when the papers were
tendered; and as it appears they would have been, but for the
attachment; that is to say, from that day until the 13th of October
1817, when the judgment was rendered in the attachment case.

It thus appears sufficiently evident, that confining our conside-
ration to the contract alone, Chase must be charged with interest.
But it is said, that the attachment restrained him from paying the
debt; and therefore, he cannot b*e burthened with interest during
the continuance of that restriction. The legislature have declared,
that a debt may be attached in the hands of a debtor before it is
due.(e) And, consequently, in such cases, the plaintiff may obtain
judgment before the debt becomes due with a stay of execu-
tion, (f) But they have said nothing about interest on any debt
that may be attached. Whether the laying of an attachment of
itself suspends the claim of interest upon the debt attached, is the
question next to be investigated and determined.

All the other States of our Union have adopted a form of judi-
cial procedure having the same object as the attachment of Mary-
land; and hence we may with as much, perhaps more, propriety
deduce illustrations and principles from their adjudications upon
this subject than from those of England. In every instance, how-
ever, it is conceived that such adjudications, whether American or
English, must be received with caution; because of the dissimi-
larity of the judicial forms, and the differences in many particulars
of the code upon which they are predicated.

A decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has been
much relied on, in which it is laid down as a general rule, in that
State, that a gamishee is not liable for interest while he is restrained
from the payment of his debt by the legal operation of a foreign
attachment.(g) This same tribunal has furnished us with an expo-
sition of the reason of this rule. Where the creditor, (it is said,)
cannot enforce payment, nor the debtor pay consistently with the
law, or without disobeying its positive and unqualified injunctions,
as by going into an enemy's country to make payment, the debt
shall not carry interest; because interest is paid for the use or far-

(e) 1795, ch. 56, s. 6.—(f) Com. Dig. tit. Attachment, G.—(g) Fitzgerald v.
Caldwell, 2 Dall. 215.