book 2, chapter 2, footnote.

ALSO IN: _E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 9._

See, also, BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.

DAVENPORT, John, and the founding of New Haven Colony.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1638, and 1639.

DAVID, King of Israel and Judah.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH, and JERUSALEM: CONQUEST, &c.

DAVID I., King of Scotland, A. D. 1124-1153. David II., 1329-1370.

DAVIS, Jefferson. Election to the Presidency of the rebellious "Confederate States."

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY).

Flight and capture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

DAVOUT, Marshal, Campaigns of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER); 1806-1807; 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE); also RUSSIA: A. D. 1812; and GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813; 1813 (AUGUST), (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

DAY OF BARRICADES, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.

DAY OF DUPES, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632.

DAY OF THE SECTIONS, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

DAYAKS, OR DYAKS, The.

See MALAYAN RACE.

DEAK, Francis, and the recovery of Hungarian nationality.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867.

DEAN FOREST.

The "Royal Forest of Dean," situated in the southwestern angle of the county of Gloucester, England, between the Severn and the Wye, is still so extensive that it covers some 23,000 acres, though much reduced from its original dimensions. Its oaks and its iron mines have played important parts in British history. The latter were worked by the Romans and still give employment to a large number of miners. The former were thought to be so essential to the naval power of England that the destruction of the Forest is said to have been one of the special duties prescribed to the Spanish Armada.

_J. C. Brown, Forests of England._

DEANE, Silas, and the American transactions with Beaumarchais in France.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778.

DEARBORN, General Henry, and the War of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-OCTOBER), (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

DEBRECZIN, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

DEBT, Laws concerning: Ancient Greek.

At Athens, in the time of Solon (6th century, B. C.) the Thetes--"the cultivating tenants, metayers and small proprietors of the country ... are exhibited as weighed down by debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of freedom into slavery--the whole mass of them (we are told) being in debt to the rich, who were proprietors of the greater part of the soil. They had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear. {650} All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor and creditor--once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion of the world--combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself, but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the law gave him the power of selling. The poor man thus borrowed upon the security of his body (to translate literally the Greek phrase) and upon that of the persons in his family. So severely had these oppressive contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom to slavery in Attica itself,--many others had been sold for exportation,--and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their children. ... To their relief Solon's first measure, the memorable Seisachtheia, shaking off of burthens, was directed. The relief which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security either of his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security: it deprived the creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort work from, his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica, leaving the land free from all past claims. It liberated and restored to their full rights all debtors actually in slavery under previous legal adjudication; and it even provided the means (we do not know how) of re-purchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation. And while Solon forbad every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction by forbidding him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister under his tutelage--excepting only the case in which either of the latter might be detected in unchastity. ... One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law--it settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian tranquility. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the Solonian money-law and under the democratical government, was one of high respect for the sanctity of contracts. ... There can be little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person, the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 11 (volume 3)._

DEBT: Ancient Roman.

"The hold of the creditor was on the person of the debtor. The obligation of a debt was a tying up or binding, or bondage, of the person: the payment was a solution, a loosing or release of the person from that bondage. The property of the debtor was not a pledge for the debt. It could be made so by special agreement, though in the earliest law only by transferring it at once to the ownership of the creditor. Without such special agreement, the creditor whose debtor failed to pay could not touch his property. Even when the debtor had been prosecuted and condemned to pay, if he still failed, the creditor could not touch his property. He could seize his person--I speak now of the early law, in the first centuries of the republic--and after holding him in rigorous confinement for sixty days, with opportunities, however, either to pay himself or get somebody to pay for him, if payment still failed, he could sell him as a slave, or put him to death; if there were several creditors, they could cut his body into pieces and divide it among them. This extreme severity was afterward softened; but the principle remained long unchanged, that the hold of the creditor was on the person of the debtor. If the debtor obstinately and to the last refused to surrender his property, the creditor could not touch it."

_J. Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law, lecture 10._

"During the first half of the Samnite war [B. C. 326-304], but in what year is uncertain, there was passed that famous law which prohibited personal slavery for debt. No creditor might for the future attach the person of his debtor, but he might only seize his property; and all those whose personal freedom was pledged for their debts (nexi), were released from their liability, if they could swear that they had property enough to meet their creditor's demands. It does not appear that this great alteration in the law was the work of any tribune, or that it arose out of any general or deliberate desire to soften the severity of the ancient practice. It was occasioned, we are told, by one scandalous instance of abuse of power on the part of a creditor. ... But although personal slavery for debt was thus done away with, yet the consequences of insolvency were much more serious at Rome than they are in modern Europe. He whose property had once been made over to his creditors by the prætor's sentence, became, ipso facto, infamous; he lost his tribe, and with it all his political rights; and the forfeiture was irrevocable, even though he might afterwards pay his debts to the full; nor was it even in the power of the censors to replace him on the roll of citizens. So sacred a thing did credit appear in the eyes of the Romans."

_T. Arnold, History of Rome, chapter 32 (volume 2)._

DEBT: In England.

"Debt has been regarded as a crime by primitive society in every part of the world. In Palestine, as in Rome, the creditor had power over the person of the debtor, and misfortune was commonly treated with a severity which was not always awarded to crime."

_[Leviticus 12 xxv., 39-41, and 2 Kings iv., 1]_

{651}

"In this country [England] the same system was gradually introduced in Plantagenet times. The creditor, who had been previously entitled to seize the goods, or even the land of the debtor, was at last authorised to seize his person. In one sense, indeed, the English law was, in this respect, more irrational than the cruel code of the Jews, or the awful punishment [death and dismemberment or slavery--Gibbon, chapter 44] which the law of the Twelve Tables reserved for debtors. In Palestine the creditor was, at least, entitled to the service of the debtor or of his children, and the slave had the prospect of an Insolvent Debtor's Relief Act in the Sabbatical year. Even the law of the Twelve Tables allowed the creditors to sell the debtor into slavery, instead of resorting to the horrible alternative of partitioning his body. But in England the creditors had no such choice. They had nothing to do but to throw the debtor into prison; and by his imprisonment deprive themselves of the only chance of his earning money to pay their debts. A law of this kind was intolerable to a commercial people. The debtor languished in gaol, the creditor failed to obtain payment of his debt. When trade increased in Tudor times, the wits of legislators were exercised in devising some expedient for satisfying the creditor without imprisoning the debtor. The Chancellor was authorised to appoint commissioners empowered to divide the debtor's property among the creditors. By an Act of Anne the debtor who complied with the law was released from further liability, and was practically enabled to commence life anew. In 1826, a debtor was allowed to procure his own bankruptcy; while in 1831, commissioners were appointed to carry out the arrangements which had been previously conducted under the Court of Chancery. The law of bankruptcy which was thus gradually developed by the legislation of three centuries only applied to persons in trade. No one who was not a trader could become a bankrupt; the ordinary debtor became as a matter of course an insolvent, and passed under the insolvent laws. The statutes, moreover, omitted to give any very plain definition of a trader. The distinction between trader and non-trader which had been gradually drawn by the Courts was not based on any very clear principle. A person who made bricks on his own estate of his own clay was not a trader; but a person who bought the clay and then made the bricks was a trader. Farmers, again, were exempt from the bankruptcy law; but farmers who purchased cattle for sale at a profit were liable to it. The possibility, moreover, of a trader being made a bankrupt depended on the size of his business. A petitioning creditor in bankruptcy was required to be a person to whom at least £100 was due; if two persons petitioned, their debts were required to amount to £150; if more than two persons petitioned, to £200. A small shopkeeper, therefore, who could not hope to obtain credit for £200, £150, or £100, could not become a bankrupt; he was forced to become an insolvent. The treatment of the insolvent was wholly different from that of the bankrupt. The bankruptcy law was founded on the principle that the goods and not the person of the debtor should be liable for the debt; the insolvency law enabled the person of the debtor to be seized, but provided no machinery for obtaining his goods. ... Up to 1838 the first step in insolvency was the arrest of the debtor. Any person who made a deposition on oath that some other person was in debt to him, could obtain his arrest on what was known as 'mesne process.' The oath might possibly be untrue; the debt might not be due; the warrant issued on the sworn deposition as a matter of course. But, in addition to the imprisonment on mesne process, the insolvent could be imprisoned for a further period on what was known as 'final process.' Imprisonment on mesne process was the course which the creditor took to prevent the flight of the debtor; imprisonment on final process was the punishment which the Court awarded to the crime of debt. Such a system would have been bad enough if the debtors' prisons had been well managed. The actual condition of these prisons almost exceeds belief. Dickens, indeed, has made the story of a debtor's imprisonment in the Marshalsea familiar to a world of readers. ... The Act of 1813 had done something to mitigate the misery which the law occasioned. The Court which was constituted by it released 50,000 debtors in 13 years. But large numbers of persons were still detained in prison for debt. In 1827 nearly 6,000 persons were committed in London alone for debt. The Common Law Commissioners, reporting in 1830, declared that the loud and general complaints of the law of insolvency were well founded; and Cottenham, in 1838, introduced a bill to abolish imprisonment for debt in all cases. The Lords were not prepared for so complete a remedy; they declined to abolish imprisonment on final process, or to exempt from imprisonment on mesne process, persons who owed more than £20, and who were about to leave the country. Cottenham, disappointed at these amendments, decided on strengthening his own hands by instituting a fresh inquiry. He appointed a commission in 1839, which reported in 1840, and which recommended the abolition of imprisonment on final process, and the union of bankruptcy and insolvency. In 1841, in 1842, in 1843, and in 1844 Cottenham introduced bills to carry out this report. The bills of 1841, 1842, and 1843 were lost. The bill of 1844 was not much more successful. Brougham declared that debtors who refused to disclose their property, who refused to answer questions about it, who refused to give it up, or who fraudulently made away with it, as well as debtors who had been guilty of gross extravagance, deserved imprisonment. He introduced an alternative bill giving the Court discretionary power to imprison them. The Lords, bewildered by the contrary counsels of two such great lawyers as Cottenham and Brougham, decided on referring both bills to one Select Committee. The Committee preferred Brougham's bill, amended it, and returned it to the House. This bill became ultimately law. It enabled both private debtors and traders whose debts amounted to less than the sums named in the Bankruptcy Acts to become bankrupts; and it abolished Imprisonment in all cases where the debt did not exceed £20."

_S. Walpole, History of England from 1815,