|
|
|
|
|
|
|
114 HEPBURN'S CASE.
to the Lord Proprietary in Council, where the case was regularly
heard, investigated, and disposed of as justice required, (q)
Hence it appears, that in Maryland as well as in England, where
the property of a debtor was in any way, either because of his
crimes, or of his death intestate without heirs or next of kin con-
fiscated, escheated, or taken into the public treasury, his creditors
were always paid; and that they were not left without remedy for
the recovery of their claims. I 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 favour 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; (r) and
provided by law, that no conviction should work a corruption of
blood or forfeiture of estate, (s) 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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(g) Robert Fuller's case, 14 May, 1680, Land Records, lib. C. B. 45; John Web-
ster's case, 27 November, 1680, Land Records, lib. C. B.60, 102; Richard Russell's
case, 7 May, 1681, Land Records, lib. C. S. 96, 144, 150, and 166.-(r) 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-.(s) 1809, ch. 138, s. 10.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
