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176 SALM0N v. CLAGETT.
came due, the very object of the deed might have been defeated.
He would not have obtained such a credit, as could have been
used by him, as a capital with which to prosecute his business.
The mortgaged property might have been sold, or the sureties be
forced, at once, to pay, when by postponing the payment, under
the assurance of the guaranty, until the 1st of October, 1830,
Thomas Clagett's business, even if he should fail, might be so
wound up as to produce no embarrassment, nor result in loss to
any one. For, in general, where a party undertakes to do any act
within, or upon the expiration of a limited time, he cannot be sued
and charged with a breach of his agreement before the lapse of the
specified time; unless he has himself previously rendered the per-
formance of his contract absolutely impossible, (r) The limita-
tion of the amount of the credit to $ 10,000, also shews it to have
been the true meaning of the parties, that Salmon, on his part,
undertook and agreed to give credit to Thomas Clagett to that
amount, in the manner described, until the 1st of October, 1830.
Much stress has been laid upon the fact, that the notes given
by Thomas Clagett and some others of the grantors, fell due long
before the 1st of October, 1830, and that Salmon being then un-
able to pay, he must then be considered as entitled to indemnity
by a foreclosure of the mortgage. But that very circumstance
shews, that it could not have been their intention to subject them
properly to a foreclosure of their mortgage immediately that those
notes fell due; because the express object, in so pledging their
property, was to sustain Thomas Clagett s credit to a period far
beyond that time. I am, therefore, of opinion, that the mortgage
could not have been foreclosed before the 1st of October, 1830;
consequently, the stipulation in the agreement, that it should
not be foreclosed until two years after the 26th of May, 1828, can-
not be considered as an enlargement of the time of payment to the
prejudice of these sureties, who could not be called on for pay-
went before the mortgage credit had expired.
The defendants have further insisted, that the deed of the 17th
of May, 1828, by which Thomas Clagett made an assignment of
Ms goods for the benefit of his creditors, gave to Salmon a secu-
rity for the payment of the debt covered by the mortgage, which
be was bound to make available to its full extent; or to hold it for
the benefit of the sureties of Thomas Clagett.
(r) Sir Anthony Main's case, 5 Co. 21.
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