; and to hold
out against the creditor, keep his estate by violence, and make him
accept of a small part of it, when the debtor has a larger part in his
power, and is able to give it--this is not fair, much less is it honest
and conscientious; but it is still worse to do this, and at the same
time to declare that it is the utmost the debtor can do; this, I say, is
still more dishonest, because it is not true, and is adding falsehood to
the other injustice.

Thus, I think, I have stated the case clearly, for the conduct of the
debtor; and, indeed, this way of laying all before the creditors, and
putting it into their choice, seems a very happy method for the comfort
of the debtor, cast down and dejected with the weight of his
circumstances; and, it may be, with the reproaches of his own conscience
too, that he has not done honestly in running out the effects of his
creditors, and making other families suffer by him, and perhaps poor
families too--I say, this way of giving up all with an honest and single
desire to make all the satisfaction he is able to his creditors, greatly
heals the breach in his peace, which his circumstances had made before;
for, by now doing all that is in his power, he makes all possible amends
for what is past, I mean as to men; and they are induced, by this open,
frank usage, to give him the reward of his honesty, and freely forgive
him the rest of the debt.

There is a manifest difference to the debtor, in point of conscience,
between surrendering his whole effects, or estate, to his creditors for
satisfaction of their debts, and offering them a composition, unless, as
I have said, the composition is offered, as above, to the choice of the
creditor. By surrendering the whole estate, the debtor acknowledges the
creditors' right to all he has in his possession, and gives it up to
them as their own, putting it in their full power to dispose of it as
they please.

But, by a composition, the debtor, as I have said above, stands at bay
with the creditors, and, keeping their estates in his hands, capitulates
with them, as it were, sword in hand, telling them he can give them no
more, when perhaps, and too often it is the case, it is apparent that he
is in condition to offer more. Now, let the creditors consent to these
proposals, be what it will; and, however voluntary it may be pretended
to be, it is evident that a force is the occasion of it, and the
creditor complies, and accepts the proposal, u