HAMMOND v. HAMMOND. 369

by his receipt, promised to return when called on to do so ;' (n)
and the like. By an English statute, passed in the year 1705, and
adopted here, it is declared, that, in an action on a bond, with a
condition for the payment of a lesser sum, the defendant may plead
the payment of the principal and interest due by the condition in
bar; or may, pending the suit, bring such principal and interest
into court in satisfaction of the debt (o) And, by a legislative
enactment of the provincial government, it was declared, that the
courts of common law might assess damages and give final judg-
ment in all actions of the case upon assumpsit, whether the same
should be entered upon default, demurrer, or confession without a
writ of inquiry. ( p) Under this authority, and in accordance with
the English practice, the court itself, in all actions upon bills of
exchange and promissory notes; and, in some other cases, where
interest was allowed in the shape of damages, calculated the inte-
rest, added it to the principal, and gave judgment for the whole
amount thus found due. (q) This provincial law having been
repealed by an act confined, by its terms, to cases after an inter-
locutory judgment where the plaintiff was entitled to a writ of
inquiry; and where the damages sustained could not be ascer-
tained without the intervention of a jury; (r) the courts still con-
tinue to exercise the power, as formerly, in actions on bills of ex-
change, and the like, of calculating the interest, and entering up
judgment for the whole, thus ascertained, and costs. (s)

In the year 1760, it was declared, by the court of King's Bench,
of England, that nothing could be more agreeable to justice, than
that interest should be carried down to the actual payment of the
money, (t) Yet notwithstanding the obvious correctness of this
position, owing to the strict forms by which the courts of common
law were tied up, interest has never, in England, been carried
down farther than to the day of signing judgment; nor here until
lately, and that only exclusively of costs. Although it had always
been the course of the courts of equity, as well in England as
here, in ordering the payment of money, on which interest was

(n) Darnall v. Magruder, 1 H. & G. 439.—(o) 4 Ann, ch. 16, s. 12, and 13; Kilty
Rep. 246; Godfrey v. Watson, 3 Atk. 517; Creuze v. Hunter, 2 Ves. jun. 167.—
(p) 1722, ch. 6.—(g) Thelluson v. Fletcher, 1 Doug. 316; Shepherd v. Charter, 4
T. R. 275.—(r) 1794, ch. 46; Wilmer v. Harris, 5 H. & J. 8; Hopewell v. Price,
2 H. & G. 275.—(f) 2 Harris' Ent. 87.—(t) Robinson v. Bland, 2 Burr. 1086.