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¬ors than the old one which they undertook to reform. ¬The principle was to substitute a cession of property for the imprisonment of debtors ; but the creditor, before he can enforce it, must establish his debt in the superior courts, by the same dilatory process, and under all the pressure of revenue, as if he were still to have the ultimate fruit of it under the ancient judgments and executions. — He may now, as formerly, deprive any person of his liberty whom he onuses to call his debtor, even be- fore he is possessed of any judicial confirma- tion of his demand ; yet he has no sooner ob- tained judgment against him, by a tedious suit, and at an expense in many cases beyond the amount of the debt, than the prison doors fly open, and the debtor, as if the proof of the debt entitled him to freedom from the conse- quences, has now only to offer what he has, or to say that he has nothing; and thus, after all the cost and delay of a solemn process, the cre- ditor ¬
