The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY l9, 1842.

it of no avail, became passive, and was given in charge
to the police.
On searching the prisoner at the station•house, a
small amount in money, a pawnbroker's duplicate, and a
skeleton key, were found in his pocket.
The prisoner could gixe no satisfactory account of
himself, and was remanded until Friday next.

LITERATURE.

FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 56.
Chapman and Hull, London, 1842.
By an Address prefixed to this Number, we
learn that the Foreign Quarterly Review has
lately passed into new hands, and that henceforth
'it will be conducted with increased spirit. "No
cost," says the editor, " will be spared to secure
contributions from- gentlemen who occupy the
highest literary positions at home and abroad;
and to procure from them such articles as may,
at the same time, both suit the taste of "the
British public, and contribute to international
instruction." If the Review be carried on in
this liberal spirit—though we must confess we
have a sort of inherent distrust of literary pro-
spectuses—it can scarcely fail of meeting with
public encouragement, hut indeed it will not ba
doing amiss, if it do no more than maintain the
high and impartial character it has already ac-
quired. The present Number is a good, though
by no means a first-rate, one. The first article,
on " Egyptian Hieroglyphics," discusses one or
two abstruse perplexing points with an air of
learned pretension, which, however, is not alto-
gether unwarranted, for the Reviewer evidently
understands as much of his subject as is ever
likely to be understood. If his essay be heavy,
the fault is not in him, but in his theme, for, in
the'first place, it is intolerably hacknied ; and
secondly, nothing definite or conclusive can ever
be arrived at, for almost all is guess-work as re-
gards Egyptian speculations. The notice of
" Barante s History of the Dukes of Burgundy"
is an agreeable subject, lightly and dexterously
canvassed. This celebrated Duchy cuts a con-
spicuous figure in the history of the middle ages,
and its Dukes were fbr many a long year thorns
in the sides of the Kings of France. Indeed,
during a portion of the reign of Louis the
Eleventh, Charles the Bold was his rival in
power, and almost in extent of dominion, and
scarcely concealed his intention of throwing off
the shackles of Prance, and erecting Burgundy
into an independent. Monarchy. The Reviewer
should have entered more fully into this part of
his subject than lie has done, for it is Lull of in-
terest. " Roepell's History of Poland" is to the
full as entertaining as the topic will admit of;
for the annals of this ill-starred country are
nearly as barren of instructive or amusing matter
as those of Russia, and only begin to possess
value about the close of the seventeenth century.
Poles and Muscovites were alike barbarons when
the rest of Europe was emerging from darkness;
and who can take interest in the monotonous re-
cords of barbarism ? "Sweden As It Is" gives a
detailed account of the present state of commerce
and manufactures in that rising kingdom, and
condemns its celebrated King, Bernadotte, for
his incessant boastings that he is the saviour of
Sweden, which the Reviewer observes, " has
excited great bitterness* among almost every
class." The notice of " Kohl's Sketches of St.
Petersburgh," furnishes us with more curious de-
tails respecting this imposing metropolis than we
have yet met with, notwithstanding the nume-
rous " Travels," " Visits," &c., to Russia, with
which the press is constantly teeming. The
houses, it seems, are rarely more than one or two
stories high, but they make up for want of height
by the immense space of ground which they cover.
" To form their foundation," adds the Reviewer,
"requires a little fortune, owing to the swampy
character of the soil, into which so many piles
must be driven before a solid scaffolding can be
formed, that an entire house might elsewhere be
constructed for much less money." Nothing,
we are assured, can equal the horrors of a Rus-
sian street when the frost breaks up. Many
weeks elapse before " the six months' accumula-
tion of snow is able to wind its muddy course
through the gutters into the Neva, and while in
this intermediate condition, the streets are filled
with a sea mud, such as the liveliest imagination of
a Cockney would vainly attempt to picture to
himself." Yet, bad as the thaw is, the frost is
scarcely less annoying, for clouds of snow-dust
are then thrown up by the horses, forming a light
powder more disagreeable even than the dust of
summer; noses, too, are in the habit of freezing
without the knowledge of their proprietors, so
that to pull a man's nose in the street is not to
insult him, as with us, but to do him the greatest
possible kindness ! We conclude with a descrip-*
non of the river Neva, which, says the Reviewer,
" a century ago was known to few but the herds-
men of the Finnish marshes; while now, its
tittne fills the world, and its chrystal waters serve
to mirror lines of palaces among the most sump-
tuous that this earth has ever seen :"
The Neva is a river of about forty English miles in
length, and is the channel thrOugh which the Ladoga
Lake pours its waters into the Baltic. Just before reach-
ing the Gulf of Finland, it divides into a multitude of
arms, of which the principal are, the Great and Little
Nova, and the which.
and Little Nevka. Of these, the
Great Nera is the most important, being in some places
more than twice as broad as the Thames at Waterloo-
bridge. It is impossible for a river to be of more, import-
ance to a city than the Neva is to St. Petersburgh, and
boundless is the affection expressed towards it by the in-
habitants, and probably felt by most of them. The St.
Petersburgher maintains that no other water on the fitce
of the globe is so sweet to drink ; that with ntme other
can coffee or tea be made in such perfection ; and the
first thing presented to a friend on his return from a jour-
ney is generally a glass of Neva water. The Emperor
Alexander is even said to have always had a oluantity of
Neva water bottled up for his use in travelling. The
Neva, moreover, abounds in a variety of delicious fish,
serves to cleanse the capital of its impurities, and places
it in easy connection, not only with foreign countries, by
even with some of the most remote provinces of the em-
pire. For nearly six months of every year, the beloved
Neva is bound in icy fetters ; for early in November the
navigation closes, and it is rarely before the beginning or
the middle of April that the water has acquired suffi-
cient warmth to enable it to burst its bonds. This mo-
ment is anxiously looked for ; and as soon as the dirty
masses of ice have glided down the river far enough to
make it possible for a boat to pass from one side to the
other, the wished-for event is announced by a discharge
of artillery from the fortress. Be it night or day, the
Commandant of the fortress, accompanied by the officers
of his staff, and arrayed in all the insignia of his rank,
embarks in his gondola, and crosses over to the winter
palace.. The Commandant is immediately admitted into
his Sovereign's presence, to whom he announces that the
winter has reached its ose, in token of which he points
to his gondola, and presents his Majesty with a crystal
goblet filled with the sparkling water of the Neva. The
Emperor drains off the uninebriating bumper to the health
of his capital, and returns the goblet to the Commandant
filled with gold. Such at least was formerly the practice;
but it was found that the goblet had a marvellous ten-
dency to increase its dimensions, till at last the Empe-
ror's potatory powers were scarcely equal to the task ini•
while his privy purse was at the same
posed upon him,
time made sensible of the expansive quality of the Com-
mandant's goblet. A compromise was at last deemed
expedient. The Emperor fixed the officer's douceur at
200 ducats, and since then his Majesty has found it less
difficult to comply with the periodical usage of his water-
drinking predecessors.

PENNY MAGAZINE. C. Knight, London, 1842.

This is the first volume of a new series of a pe-
riodical which most deservedly has niet- with a
large and constantly increasing circulation. It
is embellished with numerous choice wood en-
,
,gravings, sonic of which arc taken from the best
paintings in the Dulwich, Gallery i -while others,
under the title of "Chaucer's Portrait Gallery,"
turnish us with clever sketches of the principal
characters in the talcs of this incomparable au-
thor. The literary portion of the work is in no
respect inferior to. the pictorial, containing, toge-
ther with several piquant original articles, ex-
tracts of fitting length from books of voyages and
travels, natural history, and science. The Maga-
zine, it appears, is brought out under the pa-
tronage of the Society for the Diffusionof Useful
Knowledge.

CHAMBERS' LONDON JOURNAL, Vol. I.
Chambers, London, 1842.

The chief fault we find with this Miscellany is
its name, which would lead one to suppose that
it was under the direction of the Messrs. Cham-
bers, whose "Edinburgh Journal" has proved
but Is, in fact, a such a successful speculation; lv.hereas it has
nothing to do with them,
a .miscellany, it
per-
fectly distinct publication... As
is by no means devoid of interestOor.the articles
are well-selected, but in the
.majority of instances,
those which profess to be original, are the worst
of the collection.

RAILROADS......“ A meeting of 'Peers and De-
puties," says the Debats
4, have been to the President of
the Council and to the ilinister of Public Works. They
were deputed by several of their colleagues to lay before
these Ministers the powerful arguments which exist in
favour of the line of railroad from Paris to Marseilles by
Dijon, with a branch to 31ulhausi.en. The Deputies of
the departments interested in the formation of a railroad
from Orleans to Marseilles, met on Priday in one of the
Conference Rooms, under the Presidency of M. Du in.
They named a Provisional Committee, composed of
Messrs. Benoit (President), Charlemagne? Roger, Abba-
tucci, and Lanyer."
it A very serious accident happs,-
Green Quarry, on Wednesday last-.lea at Lough
(brothers), named Thomas and IV,: two young men
of Mr. Matthew Wigham, of •anew Wigham sons
1:
ause, were blasting'
_lime-
tostone, one of their shots -- •
bore out the eb .a.tosed fire, and they proceeded
ploded, and r -age ; and in doing so, the shot ex-
out he-
_.,,verely hurt them both. Thomas lies with-
a recovery, both his eyes blown out, and his
-.pep mit and burnt in a dreadful manner. The other is
severely, but not dangerously hurt. They were the only
_.support of a 'poor and very infirm old man.-7'yne
ercury.

CLAIMS OF PREROGATIVE, AND
WRONGS OF THE SUBJECT.

The Westminster Review commences an able
article on these topics in the following words :
%Ye should have to apologise to our readers if it were
our intention merely to discuss the almost threadbare
subject of the Danish claims, but these having been fa-
vourably decided by the Legislature, the case of those
c]aimants is now changed into a perfectly new case, in-
volving a constitutional question which concerns the
community at large, and as such we now purpose to ex-
amine it.

The writer then describes the habitual shifts
and expedients adopted by each succeeding
Chancellor of the Exchequer in former times to
stave off, for the hour or the day, the most press-
ing of the creditors that beset him, and quotes
the conduct of Mr. S. Rice and Mr. Baring, with
regard to the Danish claims, as proofs that these
functionaries were as unjust, unmerciful, and sel-
fish as any Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
most dark, cruel, and tyrannous tune of our
country's history; in proof of which is subjoined
a summary of the proceedings that have taken
place in the House of Commons since May, 1838,
with the conclusions drawn from facts which
neither Lord Moriteagle, Mr. Baring, nor the
present Chancellor of the Exchequer can deny
When the wife and children of Sir Walter Raleigh
implored King James on their knees to spare the rem-
nant of their fortunes, that they might have out of their
inheritance at least wherewithal to keep them from starv-
ing, King James's only reply was, " I maun ha' the
land—l maun ha' it for Carr" (one of his base minions).
It is a melancholy proof how slowly Governments learn
to be just—in other words, how slow is the progress of
mankind in the science of government, that about two
hundred years after the application of Raleigh's children,
when certain British subjects, who had been plundered
of their property solely through the instrumentality of
their own Government, applied for redress and compen-
sation out of double the amount of property which their
Government had got in lieu of that which they (the ap-
plicants) had lost, they were told, as Lady Raleigh had
been told, that their claim might be reasonable enough,
but that it was not convenient to satisfy it, inasmuch as
the funds for doing so had been appropriated to other
purposes. The reply to these claimants, however, was
not quite so frank and straightforward as that of King
James. It was not, "We maun ha' the siller—we maun
ha' it for Buckingham Palace." On the contrary, the
Minister of the Crown declared that—
" Out of the proceeds arising from the Danish prizes,
348,0001. had already been applied to the public service.
This was done in consequence of a determination to ap-
ply the whole of the proceeds thence arising to the ser-
vice of the public, after satisfying the claimants and cap-
tors. The motives by which they were then actuated
arose out of the circumstances of there being various
merchants, who looked for a remuneration of the losses
they had sustained, from the manner in which the war
broke out, from those proceeds."
Whether the whole of these proceeds were so applied,
there is no further evidence. •

In 1807 the British Government became possessed of
a very large sum of money, 1,379,000/., derived from the
seizure of Danish private property before any declaration
of war, or any circumstances that might be construed
into the forerunners thereof. By way of reprisal, the
Danish Government seized British property amounting
in all to something less than half the amount of Danish
property seized by Great Britain. After twenty-seven
years of uninterrupted but fruitless application to their
own Government from the British subjects whose pro-
perty had been thus sacrificed in the way of reprisals for
the Danish property sacrificed by the unprovoked and
unexpected attack of the British Government, Parliament
in 1834 agreed to the general principle of compensating
claims for losses by the Danes in 1807, and Commis-
sioners were appointed to examine and report on them.
These Commisswners, in their report to the Treasury,
divided the claims into three classes :-1. Those for
book debts. 2. Those for goods seized on shore. 3. Those
for ships and cargoes seized. And the Treasury, in their
Minute of November, 1834 (and we particularly request
attention to' the fact), distinctly referred it to the decision
of Parliament, " whether any or all of the classes were to
be admitted to compensation."
In 1835 and 1836 the Chancellor of the 'Exchequer
paid the classes 1 and 2, but refused to pay class 3, stat-
ing in his place in the Hoitise that he resisted the demand
of those claimants, not upon his own authority but that
of the Crown lawyers, who,.when applied to as to how
far these injuries were justified by thelaws-of war and of
nations, replied, " That all ships and cargoes, whether in
port or on the high seas, might be seized and confiscated,
even though the two nations were not actually at war at
the moment."

This opinion not applying to the case, these claimants
brought their claim before the Irouse of Commons, and on
the 24th of May, 1838, carried it by a majority of 34, on
the grounds (amongst others, such as funds derived by
the British Government from their aggression, the una-
molous and unprecedented nature of the aggression itself,
and the withdrawal of protection) that their case was a
case of reprisals, and not of war ; and that, according
to Vattel, at present the highest authority on questions
of international law, " In cases of reprisals the Sove-
reign
is to compensate those of his subjects on whom the
reprisals fall; it is a debt of the State or nation, of which
etch citizen ought only to pay his quota."
Instead of complying with the sense of the House of
Commons, thus unequivocally expressed, Mr. Spring Rice,
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, directed the Commis-
sioners to make an illusory Report. The words of Mr.
Cresswell's motion, which had been carried, as we hare
said, by a majority of 34, were—
" That an humble address be presented to her Ma-
jesty, praying that her Majesty will be graciously
pleased to give directions to the Commissioners to whom
it was referred to examine the claims of certain British
subjects for losses sustained on account of book-debts
and other property confiscated by the Government of
Denmark in the year 1807, that they shall examine the
claims for losses sustained on account of seizures of ships
and cargoes by the said Government in the said year, and
that the said Commissioners shall report on such claims
to the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury."
Now, whatever construction might be put upon the
precise words of this motion, Mr. Cresswell's speech on
making it, and the debate on the occasion, rendered it
perfectly clear that the object of the mover, and the
object of the largo majority who voted with him, was a
judicial examination of the claims individually, and the
payment of such as should be found just. Instead of
this, these Commissioners merely gave a list of the
claims sent in, saying that they " had not felt themselves
warranted by their instructions in proceeding to a judi-
cial determination of any of the cases which had been
laid before them."

The claimants finding that, notwithstanding this
solemn decision of the House of Commons, justice was
still refused to them, Mr. Cresswell, on the 18th ofJune,
1839, moved the following address
" That an humble address be presented to her Majesty,
praying that she will be graciously pleased to direct the
Commissioners to whom it was referred to examine the
claims of certain British subjects, in respect to losses
sustained by the seizure of ships and cargoes by the
Danish Government in 1807, to proceed to adjudicate
upon the claims which they have received, and upon
which they have made a Report to the Lords of her Ma-
jesty's Treasury."
This motion, after a debate ,in which many members
joined, was carried by a majority of sixty-three. And
on the 12th of May, 1840, the Commissioners, in con-
formity with the terms of the above address, sent in a
judicial Report to the Treasury, in which they make the
following statement":—
" The schedule which accompanied our Report of the
6th of February, 1839, contained ninety claims, which
amounted to 524,7471. 18s. 11d.
" Many of these claims have since been disallowed in
part; many have been subdivided into separate cases ;
and the result of the whole investigation is, that we re-
port 116 claims to be supported by proof, amounting to
225,126. 9s. 10d.

" The remaining cases have been rejected for deficiency
of proof.
_ _ _

"In the judicial investigation of these claims, our ob-
ject has been to ascortain the actual loss sustained, with-
out taking into consideration any mercantile profit which
might have have realized if the seizures and confiscations
made by the Danish Government had nevertaken place."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer having signified his
intention 5611 to resist the payment of the money, the
House of Commons, on the 16th of February, 1841, again
decided—

" That it would resolve itself into a Committee of the
whole House, to consider of an address to her Majesty,
praying that her Majesty would be graciously pleased to
advance to the claimants the amount ascertained by the
Commissioners to be due, and to asspre her Majesty that
the House would make good the same."
On the 9th of June; 1841, Mr. Cresswell moved, that
the House do resolve itself into a Committee of the whole
House, to address her Majesty on the subject of the
Danish claims. The Chancellor of the Exchequer con-
sented to the appointment of a Committee, reserving his
opposition to the bringing up of the Report. Accordingly.
on the 16th, the Report having been brought up, and the
resolution read a first time,—on the question that it be
read a second time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr.
F. Baring, opposed it, and wa s supported by the Solicitor-
General. But notwithstanding this powerful opposition,
the case appeared so just that the following resolution
was carried :

" That an humble address be presented to her Majesty
praying that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to
take into consideration the Report, bearing date 12th
May, 1840, made by the Commissioners to whom it was
referred to examine and adjudicate upon the claims of
certain British subjects for losses sustained by the seizure
and confiscation of their ships and cargoes by the Go-
vernment of Denmark in the year 1807; and that her
Majesty will be pleased to advance to such claimants the
amount of their respective losses, as ascertained by the
said Commissioners; and assuring her Majesty that the
House will make good the same."
To this address the following answer was returned to
the House on the 21st of June:—

" VICTORIA R.
" It must at all times be my earnest desire to attend
to the wishes of the House of Commons, and I shall be
ready to give effect to them in this instance, whenever
the means shall have Been provided by Parliament."
Now, a natural question is, why did not her Majesty
in this instance, as in others, at once comply with the
request of the House, and pay the money ?
The answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to
this question is—
" Because there is no legal power in the Crown to do
so. If a Treasury warrant, signed by her Majesty, and
counter-signed by himself, were issued, and he were to
take it to the Exchequer, the answer would be, that there
was no legal means by which it could be paid; that her
Majesty had no power to issue such a warrant; that they
could not pay suy sum of money, unless they were

directed to do so by a Bill passed by, that House, and
concurred in by the rest of the Legislature."
Now, according to Mr. F. Baru*, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the House of Conimotis has been requesting
the Crown to commit, and the Crown has been com•
mitting, acts' which are against the law for a great ninny
years. . The following grants, which are extracted from
' the Annual Appropriation Acts, were made by Parlia-
ment, " To make good to his Majesty the like sums issued
in pursuance of the addresses of the House of Commons."
(Here are enumerated more than forty grants
of this description, made between 1774 and 1815,
amounting to 994,9741. Some of these, too, sup-
ported by the very men who now resist repeated
( votes and addresses of the House of Commons.)
Now, are all these precedents against-law? Or is a
Chancellor of the Exchequer empowered to call what-
ever suits his convenience law? The address and the
answer, on this occasion, were exactly the same as in the
case of Mr. Palmer, 1811. The answer in that ease ap-
pears to have served as a precedent for framing the
answer in the present case. How did the House view
the answer on that question ? Mr. Whitbread said :
" The answer conveyed the greatest possible insult on
the House, going as it did to express a doubt of the in-
clination or of the ability to make good any sums which
his Royal Highness (the Prince Regent) .might order to
be issued, in consequence of an address of that House."
Mr. Charles Wynn added :
"In the present instance the privileges of the House
were attacked. Though against the principle of address '
on such occasions, yet when done, it mug be carried into
effect, and was entitled to all the weight and authority,
the House could give to its proceedings. It was a noto-
rious fact, that the address of the House of Commons, or
their vote, was always considered as decisive on money
questions. Did the Exchequer ever wait for anything
else ? Did they ever wait for an act of appropriation?"
Mr. William Lamb (now Lord Melbourne) ob served :
" The Right Honourable Gentleman (the Chancellor
of the Exchequer) would haVe acted more wiselj, if he
had lent a furthering hand to the decision of the House
of Commons when they had agreed that the money ought
to be granted, instead of giving, as he had done, every
possible opposition to its effect. If such a principle were
to be acted upon it would come to this, that the votes of
the House would be considered as omnipotent when they
were given in support of the Minister, and of no effect
whatever when given against him."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied:—
" Had not the Crown full authority to pause before it
complied with that or any address? That was all that
had been done in this instance. The right of refusal was
not under consideration. It had not been done. What
was the answer complained of ? Why, the answer ex-
pressed the readiness of the Prince Regent to comply with
the wish of the House, but desired some little time for
consideration."—Hansard's Debates, 30th May, 1811.
These remarks of Mr. Charles Wynn and lord Mel-
bourne place the question in its true light, and they are
applicable in every particular to the case which we are
now considering. If a Minister may treat in this man-
ner with impunity the votes of the House of Commons,
it is clear that the House of Commons is a mere name,
and that the Minister of the Crown may adopt the words
of Louis the Fourteenth, with the substitution of " Par-
liament" for "Petat," and say, " The Parliament! c'est
moil" For, as Mr. Charles Wynn observed, it is noto-
rious that the address of the House of Commons, or their
vote, was always considered as decisive in money ques-
tions. In other words, by the fundamental principles of
the Constitution, the House of Commons, though only a
limb of the Parliament or Sovereign in other questions,
is in money questions the Sovereign itself—in other words,
represents the whole Parliament.
.Its vote, therefore,
deliberately given and recorded, has in such questions
the force of law.

But observe what any opposition: On the part of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer (of whatever party) to
carrying into effect the measure contemplated in the
Queen's answer, as quoted above, would amount to.
That answer is in effect the answer of the Queen's
Ministers, specifically the answer of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Now what name would belong to the
condfict.of an individual who should solemnly assent to
the performance of a certain act, and then use every
effort in his power to hinder that act from being accom-
plished? Yet this would be precisely the conduct of any
Chancellor of her Majesty's Exchequer, who, after this
address and this answer, should offer any opposition to
the Houge of Commons making good its deliberately
given and solemnly recorded resolution.
It is a maxim of the English law that there is no wrong
without a remedy. It was made. one of the articles of
Lord Somer's impeachment, that in his argument in the
Bankers' Case he appeared to throw a doubt upon this
principle—that he seemed to argue for the position that
there !might be, that there were, cases in which the sub-
ject might have a right without a ,remedy, unless by pe-
tition to the person of the Kin, ; a- doctrine, certainly,
which appears quite incompatible with the existence of
a free and constitutional Government—a doctrine which
was overthrown by the final and solemn decision of the
House of Lords, which reversed Lord Somer's judgment
in the Bankers' Case, and affirmed that of the Barons of
the Exchequer and the majority of the Judges. In the
case before us the plaintiffs had suffered a grievous wrong,
and they adopted and strictly followed the course marked
out by the constitution and laws of their country in
seeking a remedy. They submitted their case to the
decision of that Court, namely, the High Court of Par-
lianient (for it is alMost unnecessary to repeat the ob-'
servation of Mr. C. Wynn, a very high authority on that
point, that on money questions the House of Commons
represents the High Court of Parliament), to which
their adversary expressly referred them. That
Court solemnly and deliberately gave judgment in
their favour. It was not a judgment obtained, •as
some are in their tribunal, by fraud, by trick, by
haste, by negligence, by oversight on the part of those
opposed to it. The question was repeatedly and delibe-
rately argued, and in everything that was done respect-
ing it the strictest regard was had to all the forms of the
House; and the opposite side in the cause, viz., the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, strained every nerve to obtain
a judgment in his own favour. Nevertheless, as we have
said, judgment was recorded in favour of the plaintiffs.
The Queen's gracious answer to the address of the
House was, that her Majesty would pay the money as
soon as Parliament should provide the means. Now, it
was clearly the duty of those who prepared the estimates
next after the receipt of this answer by the House, to in-
clude in them the sum of money which the Queen had
here given a clear and distinct "promise to pay."