creditors. The trustees are liable to be called to account at the instance of either the debtor or creditor.

case of non-resident debtors, it is a general principle that all the proceedings are construed strictly, for the greater safety of the absentee, to whom notice may not have reached. State Bank v. Hinton, 1 Dev. N. Carolina Rep. 397. In Kentucky the lands of a non-resident debtor may be appropriated by attachment by the creditor, if the debtor has no personal property. 9 Dana's Rep. 98. 266. So a bill in equity will lie to sequester the effects of absent debtors in the hands of persons resident in the state. Statutes 1796, 1827, 1837. These statutes give the remedy against the lands and goods of non-resident and of absent debtors. 9 Dana's Rep. 307, 308. 3B. Monroe, 119.

In South Carolina, their foriegn attachment law is founded on, and has received construction from the custom of London. Smith v. Posey, 2 Hill's Rep. 471. See Rice's valuable Digest on the Cases Decided in that State and in which the decisions under the title of "attachment (foreign)" are fully and clearly stated.

In Georgia, the same process of domestic attachment lies when the debtor is absconding, and if he is about to remove, it lies though the debt be not due. The foreign attachment lies when the debtor is a non-resident, and also, in favour of a non-resident creditor. It reaches debt and credits in the hands of the garnishee, and is for the benefit of the plaintiff in the attachment Prince's Digest, 2d edit. 1837, p. 30—42. The same statute provisions in Alabama, Aikin's Dig. 2d edit. p. 37-40.

In Louisiana, they have the like process of attachment as in the other states, when the debtor absconds, or is about to remove, or is non-resident. Third persons who have funds and effects of the debtor in hand may be cited to answer upon interrogatories, and if the garnishee has funds of the debtor, the creditor, after judgment against the debtor, may pursue them by judgment and execution against the garnishee. Proseus v. Mason, 12 Louis. Rep. 16. The debtor about to remove may be arrested and held to bail, though the debt be not due. Desha v. Solomons, 12 Louis. Rep. 272. Ib. 479. If the garnishee be a consignee of goods, and has made advances on them, he may claim a preference as a creditor of consignor, if the attachment be levied while the goods are in transitu, and before deliv. ery to the consignee. Wilson v. Smith, 12 Louis. Rep. 375. Gardiner v. Smith, Ib. 370.

In Mississippi, there is the like process of foreign and domestic attachment against non-resident and absconding debtors, and debtors preparing to remove though the debt be not due. Debts and credits of the debtor in the hands of third persons may be attached by process of summons or garnishment. The party suing out a foreign attachment must be a resident. R. Code of Mississippi, 1824, p. 157-168. The process of attachment in most of the states is for the exclusive benefit of the attaching debtor.

So, the assignees under the insolvent act are *declared to be trustees; and where there are two trustees, either of them may collect the debts; and where there are more than two, the powers appertaining to the trust may be exercised by any two of them. But no suits in equity are to be brought by the assignees of insolvent debtors, without the consent of a majority of the creditors in interest, unless the sum in controversy exceeds $500. They are to sell the assets at auction, and may allow a reasonable credit on good security. They are to redeem mortgages and pledges, and conditional contracts, and settle accounts, and compound with debtors under the authority of the officer appointing them. They are to call a general meeting of the creditors; and the mode of distribution is specially declared. They are to declare dividends; and dividends unclaimed for a year are to be deemed relinquished. They are to account upon oath, and are allowed a commission of five per cent. on all moneys received; and they may be discharged from their trust by the proper authority on their own application, and new assignees appointed in their stead. These trustees, in many respects, resemble commissioners under the English bankrupt laws; and the proper remedy against them is, either by a bill in chancery, or an application to the equitable powers of the court in which the proceedings are pending, to compel an account and an adjustment. It was held, in Peck v. Randall,b that the creditor could not maintain a suit at law against the trustees of an absconding debtor before the demand had been adjusted, and a dividend declared. In England it is well settled in the analogous case of a claim for dividends on a bankrupt's estate, that a suit at law cannot be

But a court of equity has jurisdiction of a bill filed by a non-resident plaintiff against a non-resident debtor, if there be also a resident defendant. Comstock v. Rayford, 1 Smedes & Marshall Miss. R. 423. Ib. 584, S. P. N. Y. Revised Statutes, vol. ii. p. 39-51.

1 Johns. Rep. 165.

sustained for a dividend, and that the creditor applies to the court of chancery for assistance to obtain it.a

A grave and difficult question has been frequently discussed in our American courts, respecting the con*405 flicting *claims arising under our attachment laws, and under a foreign bankrupt assignment. If a debtor in England, owing a house in New-York, as well as creditors in England, be regularly declared a bankrupt in England, and his estate duly assigned, and if the house in New-York afterwards sues out process of attachment against the estate of the same debtor, and trustees are appointed accordingly, the question is, which class of trustees is entitled to distribute the fund and to whom can the debtors of the absent or bankrupt debtor safely pay. In such a case, there are assignees in England claiming a right to all the estate and debts of the bankrupt, and there are trustees in New York claiming the same right. This question was considered in Holmes v. Remsen, and the English and Scotch, and other foreign authorities examined; and the conclusion was that by the English law, and by the general international law of Europe, the proceeding which is prior in point of time is prior in point of right, and attaches to itself the right to take and distribute the estate. It was considered, that as the English assignees in that case were first appointed, and the assignment of the bankrupt's estate first made to them, that assignment carried the bankrupt's property, wherever situated; and it consequently passed the debt due by a citizen of this state to the English bankrupt; so that a payment of such a debt to the English assignees was a good payment in bar of a claim for that same debt,

by the trustees, under our absconding act. This *406 *rule appeared to be well settled, and to be found

Ex parte White, and Ex parte Whitchurch, 1 Atk. Rep. 90. Assignes of Gardiner v. Shannou, 2 Sch. & Lef. 229.

4 Johns. Ch. Rep. 460.

• The authorities cited in Holmes v. Remsen, to show that the rule con

ed in justice and policy, and the comity of nations. It rested on the principle of general jurisprudence that personal property was deemed by fiction of law to be situated in the country in which the bankrupt had his domicil, and to follow the person of the owner: and it was to be administered in bankruptcy according to the rule of the law of that country, as if it was locally placed within it. No doubt was entertained, that if the appointment of trustees, under the New-York act, had been the first in point of time, the title of the trustees would have been recognized in the English courts as controlling the personal property in England. By the same rule, the English assignees, being first in time, were held entitled to control the personal property of the debtor existing in New-York.

But, whatever consideration might otherwise have been due to the opinion in that case, and to the reasons and decisions on which it rested, the weight of American authority is decidedly the other way; and it may now

tended for in that case was incontrovertibly established in the jurisprudence of the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, are, Pipon v. Pipon., Amb. Rep. 25. Case of Wilson, before Lord Hardwicke, cited by Lord Loughborough in 1 H. Blacks. Rep 691. Solomons v. Ross, 131, Ibid. note. Jollet v. Deponthieu & Baril, Ibid. 132, note. Neal v. Cottingham & Houghtor, Ibid. Philips v. Hunter, 2 Ibid. 402. Sills v. Worswick, 1 Ibid. 665. Lord Thurlow, in the case Ex parte Blakes, 1 Cox's Rep. 398. Lord Kenyon, in Hunter v. Potts, 4 Term Rep. 182. Lord Ellenborough, 5 East's Rep. 131. Stein's case, 1 Rose on Bankruptcy, App. 462. Selkrig v. Davis & Salt, 2 Dow's Rep. 230. 2 Rose on Bankruptcy, 291. By the Scotch law, the foreign assignment will not prevent a subsequent attachment in Scotland by a Scotch creditor, unless notice of the assignment be given to, or had by the creditor. No such notice is requisite to the operation of the assignment under the English law. The English doctrine applies equally to voluntary and bona fide assignments of personal property by the owner domiciled abroad, to assignments under bankrupt and insol. vent statutes, and to the distribution of the moveable property of testators and intestates by will, and under the law of distribution. The cases all rest on the same general principle giving a universal operation to transfer, or the disposition of personal property, made or existing at the owner's domicil, wherever that property may be situated, and when not bound by any local lien at the time.

be considered as part of the settled jurisprudence of this country, that personal property as against creditors has locality, and the lex loci rei sita prevails over the law of the domicil with regard to the rule of preferences in the case of insolvent's estates. The laws of other governments have no force beyond their territorial limits; and if permitted to operate in other states, it is upon a prínciple of comity, and only when neither the state nor its citizens would suffer any inconvenience from the application of the foreign law. A prior assignment in bankruptcy, under a foreign law, will not be permitted to prevail against a subsequent attachment by an American creditor of the bankrupt's effects found here; and our courts will not subject our citizens to the inconvenience. of seeking their dividends abroad when they have the means to satisfy them under their own control. *407 *This was the rule in Maryland prior to our revolution, according to the opinion of Mr. Dulany, reported in Burk v. M'Lean ; and afterwards, in 1790, it was decided, in Wallace v. Patterson, that property of the bankrupt could be atttached here, notwithstanding a prior assignment in bankruptcy in England. The same doctrine was declared in Pennsylvania,d after an elaborate discussion of the question. The court in that state considered that an assignment abroad, by act of law, had no legal operation extra territorium as against the claims of their own citizens. But the foreign assignee in bankruptcy may sue in Pennsylvania in the name of the bankrupt, for the assets of the estate, and recover them except as against the rights of the American credi

с

a Parsons, Ch. J., in Greenwood v. Curtis, 6 Mass. Rep. 378. Porter, J. in Olivier v. Townes, 14 Martin's Louis. Rep. 99–101.

b 1 Harr. & M Henry, 236.

e 2 lbid. 463.

a Milne v. Moreton, 6 Binney's Rep. 353. See Mullikin v. Aughinbaugh, 1 Penn. Rep. 117, to the same point. See, also, Ogden v. Gillingham, 1 Baldw. Rep. C. C. U. S. 38. Lowry v. Hall, 2 Watts & Serg. 32.