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HEPBURN'S CASE. 123
taken out of the country; but, in the absence of a resident citizen
agent should be deposited with the treasurer of the state. (6) And
it was further provided, that the factors of British creditors should
not collect and remit debts due to them until they had lodged with
the auditor a list of all balances due to such creditors, and given
bond to satisfy the citizen creditors of those British creditors, (e)
Thus preserving, for the benefit of citizen creditors, the vouchers,
and the funds within their reach so as to enable them to levy their
attachments with more certainty and effect.
From these various views of the subject it clearly appears, that
all Hepburn's remedies for the recovery of the debt he alleges to be
due to him from the Mollisons were preserved in the most effectual
form by the confiscation acts. And, that, supposing those acts out
of the question, there was nothing in the war; or in the circum-
stances, or situation of the Mollisons, that could, in the slightest
degree, affect his remedies; and therefore, there is nothing under
which his claim can take shelter from the presumption against it;
unless it may be found in the last position assumed by him; which
is, that there were, in fact, no debts due to the Mollisons which he
could have attached, or if there were, that he was wholly ignorant
of there being any such debts; and also of the fact of any pro-
perty of theirs having been actually confiscated and taken into the
public treasury.
It appears from the various documents and Touchers produced
by the petitioner himself, that the Mollisons were English mer-
chants resident in London, engaged very extensively in trade to
this country; that they had, in Maryland, a store at Georgetown,
another at Bladensburg, a third at Pamunky, in Charles county, a
fourth at Pig point, and a fifth at Huntingtown, in Calvert county;
that they received from various persons in Maryland large consign-
ments of tobacco; and, amongst others, that this debt now claimed
originated in that way; that their trade was continued to about the
year 1775; that they had debts due to them, from debtors dispersed
over the whole of the then settled portion of the Western Shore of
Maryland, to the amount of about 17,000 sterling; about £13,000
of which is represented to have been due from persons who were
solvent at or after the peace; and that Samuel C. Hepburn, the
executor of the late creditor, at the time, and for many years after,
resided in Prince Georges county, about mid-way between those
(6) October, 1780, ch. 40, s, 10,—(c) 1786, ch. 49.
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