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104 HEPBURN'S CASE.
not the slightest allusion to any contingency upon which it was to
be considered as a payment or not; it does not intimate, that it was
the proceeds of the sale of a bill of exchange, or any thing else,
which might or might not be deemed a payment, according to cir-
cumstances; but simply affirms the fact of a payment of the spe-
cified amount haying 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, intimated. 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 have 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 Ms testator. But if he had meant it should be considered as
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