s the
bankrupt. (1.) He knows the circumstances of the debtors, and how best
to manage them; he knows who he may best push at, and who best forbear.
(2.) He can do it with the least charge; the commissioners or assignees
must employ other people, such as attorneys, solicitors, &c., and they
are paid dear. The bankrupt sits at home, and by letters into the
country, or by visiting them, if in town, can make up every account,
answer every objection, judge of every scruple, and, in a word, with
ease, compared to what others must do, brings them to comply.

Next, as to selling off a stock of goods. The bankrupt keeps open the
shop, disperses or disposes of the goods with advantage; whereas the
commission brings all to a sale, or an outcry, or an appraisement, and
all sinks the value of the stock; so that the bankrupt can certainly
make more of the stock than any other person (always provided he is
honest, as I said before), and much more than the creditors can do.

For these reasons, and many others, the bankrupt is able to make a
better offer upon his estate than the creditors can expect to raise any
other way; and therefore it is their interest always to take the first
offer, if they are satisfied there is no fraud in it, and that the man
has offered any thing near the extent of what he has left in the world
to offer from.

If, then, it be the tradesman's interest to accept of the offer made,
there needs no stronger argument to be used with him for the doing it;
and nothing is more surprising to me than to see tradesmen, the hardest
to come into such compositions, and to push on severities against other
tradesmen, as if they were out of the reach of the shocks of fortune
themselves, or that it was impossible for them ever to stand in need of
the same mercy--the contrary to which I have often seen.

To what purpose should tradesmen push things to extremities against
tradesmen, if nothing is to be gotten by it, and if the insolvent
tradesman will take proper measures to convince the creditor that his
intentions are honest? The law was made for offenders; there needs no
law for innocent men: commissions are granted to manage knaves, and
hamper and entangle cunning and designing rogues, who seek to raise
fortunes out of their creditors' estates, and exalt themselves by their
own downfall; they are not designed against honest men, neither, indeed,
is there any need of them for such.

Let no man mistake this part, therefore