Reeves' History of the English Law, from the Time of the Romans to the End of the Reign of Elizabeth [1603]; With Numerous Notes, and an Introductory Dissertation on the Nature and Use of Legal History, the Rise and Progress of Volume 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...estate of the bankrupt, with stran ers or particular creditors. or it will be observed that this statute provided that the machinery should be in each case by commission to honest and discreet persons to take order with the bankrupt s estate, 1'. c., collect and distribute it, and these persons no doubt were intended to be, as they naturally would be, and in fact were, creditors, who, of course, would be most interested in a speedy collection and distribution of the assets, leaving questions of right or property arising between them and others, whether particular creditors or strangers, to be settled by the ordinary courts of law or equity, as the case might be. The authority to administer the estate would be that of the creditors, acting under the commission; and thus a commission in each case is a domestic body, without the cumbrous machinery and formal procedure of a court. In the first case voL. v.--21 Q This act is stat. 13 Elizabeth, c. 7, which complains, that notwithstanding stat. 34 and 35 Henry VIII., c. 4, those kind of persons had much increased: it was, therefore, necessary to make better provision for suppressing them, and to declare plainly who is and ought to be deemed a bankrupt, which it does in a very full manner; for it enacts, if any merchant or other person using or exercising the trade of merchandise, by way of bargaining, exchange, re-change, bartry, chevi of bankrupta. which appears to have arisen for a court of law under this act-the Case of Bankrupts reported by Lord Coke--the question being between the commissioners and a particular creditor as to a part of the estates, the statute was thus expounded and explained: First, the act describes a bankrupt, and whom he...