The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-28 00:00:00

EX PARTE BATESON, IN RE WOTHERSPOON

In this case an important question arose under the statute
of limitations. The petition was presented by the assignees
of the bankrupt, who was a broker at Liverpool, praying for
an order of the court to expunge a proof of £1,656, made by
the assignees of Messrs. Fletcher, Roscoe, and Company,
who were formerly bankers at Liverpool. In 1830, the
bankrupt was in partnership with a person named Donald-
son, since deceased, and a composition was accepted by
their creditors, of ss. in the pound. Messrs. Fletcher and
Roscoe were at the same time creditors to a large amount,
and were paid £220 on account of the composition, which
amounted to £440. They sent a letter to the bankrupt,
stating that they would sign a release in full on the payment
of the second instalment, which instalment, however, had
never been paid. In 1832, the Messrs. Fletcher and Roscoe
failed, and, in 1836, the present bankrupt acknowledged the
composition sum in writing, and in 1839 sent a check for
£lOO, requesting it to be placed to his balance, and to be
sent a receipt as part payment made on the sum agreed to
be taken as the composition. The assignees of the bankers
refused to give the receipt required, and had proved under
the fiat against Mr. Wotherspoon, for the original debt with
interest, and hence arose the present petition.
Mr. ANDERSON (with Mr. Drxorr:) for the petitioners,
contended that the assignees of the bankers, who were the
respondents, could only prove for the balance of the compo-
sition► sum, and cited cases to show that an acknowledgment
of a debt, without a promise to pay a particular sum, would
not carry more than nominal damages.

Mr. SWANSTON (with Mr. ARP) urged for the re-
spondents, that as the composition had not been paid, the
original debt still existed. There was only one debt, and the
payments had been made on the sum on which a composition
had been proposed, but never carried into operation.
Mr. ANDERDON said this was a very important question,
and the recent decisions in the courts at Westminster had
established the principle under Lord Tenterden's act, that a
party must, in addition to acknowledging the debt in writing,
state the sum he would pay, and the bankrupt's letters had
reference to the composition.
Sir GEORGE ROSE was of opinion (which he expressed in
an early stage of the argument) that the original debt was
in force by the letters, and therefore the proof was a valid
one.

Sir JOHN CROSS reserved his opinion until the case had
been fully argued, and then held that the letters had refer-
ence to the original sum, inasmuch as though one referred to
the composition, yeti that as it had not been paid, there was
but one debt—the original sum.

The COURT dismissed the petition, with costs, out of the
bankrupt's estate.

COMMERCIAL POLICY OF THE FOREIGN

OFFICE

(From the Morning Herald.)
The discussion ably opened by Lord Sandon on Wednesday
last upon the disastrous results of the commercial policy, or
rather the monstrous impolicy, of the foreign office, has
naturally excited considerable attention in the trading circles
of the city, where, although every merchant from experience
in his own business could produce substantial comment from
his ledger on the scandalous ignorance and incapacity of
Lord Palmerston, yet few or none had conceived, or had the
means or time for estimating, the items of the long bill of
costs in all other departments of trade, as well as his own,
which is saddled on the nation as a yearly and increasing
charge of pains and penalties resulting from the faults and
follies of the same special quarter. The list is sufficiently
lengthy and the materials abundant all the world over where
British commerce extends and used to flourish, in proof of
the same mischievous consequences found everywhere equally
to result from the one radical vice of the administration of
foreign affairs. From the strenuous efforts made out of as
well as in the House of Commons to gloss over and patch up
the blundering system of foreign misrule it will be the more
useful, if not edifying, to diffuse as widely as possible the
bill of particulars of damage so fur as presented by Lord
Sandon on the one occasion only referred to, and which
might readily be swelled, were it not startling enough -by
itself, with sundry large additions under other heads, such
for example as the losses incurred by the infraction of the
indemnity treaty with Spain. The following is the summary
ready at hand and arranged in the Courier.
First, then, the amount of British property in duresse and
daily deterioration at Buenos Ayres, by the blockade, is
for three years challenged as above
The annual interest upon which lost without
chance of indemnity
Requiring, besides, for the preservation of the
perishable articles of which composed, an out-
lay per annum of
British capital embarked and locked up in local
funds there, 5,000,000 dollars, or more than
In the National Bank there capital invested for
2,000,000 of dollars more, or nearly 500,000
involved besides in Monte Video 1,000,000
All which we are told is depreciated, extra of the outlay
required, " one-fifteenth" in value.
The case of Portugal comes next, where three years ago a
differential duty of 15 per cent. was imposed in favour of
goods shipped in Portuguese vessels from British ports. The
effect is thus stated :
In 1838, Portuguese vessels shipping cargoes from
Liverpool, two cargoes worth
In the same year, of British vessels, 70 cargoes of
which
In 1839, when the duty began to tell, of Portuguese
vessels 40 cargoes 292,000
Cargoes sent the same year by British vessels fell to 509.000
Spain, moreover, a sister pet with Portugal of Lord Pal-
merston, imposed discriminating duties on various articles
borne in British shipping, varying from 30 to 200 per cent.
by way of favouring national vessels. Let us see how these
operate in respect of Havannah alone, and as between that
port and Liverpool. The duties come into operation in 1834.
In 1839 six British vessels carried to Havannah,
of British goods
Eleven vessels of other nations
Spanish vessels
In 1834, the exports from Liverpool to Havannah,
in British vessels, reached in nominal value to £382,724
In 1835 the amount declined to. 205,202
1836 to
1837 to
1838 to
• 1839 the amount fell to 35,997
Such are the downard commercial achievements of Lord
Palmerston in respect of British shipping; on turning to his
patronage of Spanish, we arrive at the following consumma-
tion of results :
In 1834 cargoes carried out in Spanish bottoms
were in value
In 1835
1836
1837
1838
1839

53,000

20,000

1,000,000

£170,000

887,000

284 bales
812
6,265 •

£13,204
123,602
264,928
279,278
318,534
269,106
Facts and figures illustrative like these of the sinister
somnambulism or destructive dallying of the Foreign Office
need no comment, and none shall we offer.
To this list, long as it is, must be added another grievance
of the same quality on the side of Mexico, the amount of
which cannot be so conveniently reduced to the shape of a
profit and loss account in figures.
" In the first place, be had to remark that a short time
ago he had called the attention of the noble lord to the cir-
cumstance of Mexico having imposed upon British goods in
some instances a duty of 100 per cent., without that notice
of six months to which they were entitled by the tariff. The
attention of the. noble lord had been called to this circum-
stance in the month of February in this year. He could
assure the house that great injury had been done to British
manufactures by.this. The last time he had referred to this
subject, he had desired to know whether the noble lord had
issued instructions, and what remedy had been provided for
the evil that had been done. What then did he find? That
it was not until two months after that eu order had been sent
off, and the consequence was that he herd great complaints
of the British merchants and British manufacturers against
the noble lord for not at once taking steps that were neces
sary, and even' yet they were not aware what the tone of
remonstrance had been.. Now, in connection with this point,
and with regard to the duties imposed in 1837 by Mexico in
a similar manner, they hod received the assurance of the
noble lord, that as to the Mexican government, it would re-
store the excess of duties that had been levied by it. They
were told this ; they were assured of this, and yet no reim-
bursement had taken place. That, then, was a grievance of
three years' standing.'