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even at this day in England. So that, in Virginia, when a debt has been settled between the parties and put into the form of a bill of exchange, promissory note or bond, the law admits it to be transferred by assignment. In all other cases the assignment of a debt is void.

The debts from the United States to the soldiers of Virginia, not having been put into either of these forms, the assignments of them were void in law.

A creditor may give an order on his debtor in favor of another, but if the debtor does not accept it, he must be sued in the creditor's name; which shows that the order does not transfer the property of the debts. The creditor may appoint another to be his attorney to receive and recover his debt, and he may covenant that when received the attorney may apply it to his own use. But he must sue as attorney to the original proprietor, and not in his own right.

This proves that a power of attorney, with such a covenant, does not transfer the property of the debt. A further proof in* both cases is, that the original creditor may at any time before payment or acceptance revoke either his order or his power of attorney.

In that event the person in whose favor they were given has recourse to a court of equity. When there, the judge examines whether he has done equity. If he finds his transaction has been a fair one, he gives him aid. If he finds it has been otherwise, not permitting his court to be made a handmaid to fraud, he leaves him without remedy in equity as he was in law. The assignments in the present case, therefore, if unfairly obtained, as seems to be admitted, are void in equity as they are in law. And they derive their nullity from the laws under which they were made, not from the new resolutions of Congress. These are not retrospective. They only direct their treasurer not to give validity to an assignment which had it not before, by payments to the assignee until he in whom the legal property still is, shall order it in such a form as to show he is apprized of the sum he is to part with, and its readiness to be paid into his or

any other hands, and that he chooses, notwithstanding, to acquiesce under the fraud which has been practised on him. In that case he has only to execute before two justices a power of attorney to the same person, expressing the specific sum of his demand, and it is to be complied with. Actual payment, in this case, is an important act. If made to the assignee, it would put the burthen of proof and process on the original owner. If made to that owner, it puts it on the assignee, who must then come forward and show that his transaction has been that of an honest man.

Government seems to be doing in this what every individual, I think, would feel himself bound to do in the case of his own debt. For, being free in the law, to pay to the one or the other, he would certainly give the advantage to the party who has suffered wrong rather than to him who has committed it.

It is not honorable to take a mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice.

But it is honorable to embrace a salutary principle of law when a relinquishment of it is solicited only to support a fraud.

I think the resolutions, therefore, merit approbation. I have before professed my incompetence to say what are the laws of North Carolina on this subject. They, like Virginia, adopted the English laws in the gross. These laws forbid in general the buying and selling of debts, and their policy in this is so wise that I presume they had not changed it till the contrary be shown.

VII.-Plan for establishing uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States. Communicated to the House of Representatives, July 13, 1790.

NEW YORK, July 4, 1790. SIR-In obedience to the order of the House of Representatives of January 15th, I have now the honor to enclose you a report on the subject of measures, weights, and coins. The length of time which intervened between the date of the order and my arrival in this city, prevented my receiving it till the 15th of April; and an illness which followed soon after added, unavoidably, some

weeks to the delay; so that it was not till about the 20th May that I was able to finish the report. A desire to lessen the number of its imperfections induced me still to withhold it awhile, till, on the 15th of June, came to my hands, from Paris, a printed copy of a proposition made by the Bishop of Autun, to the National Assembly of France, on the subject of weights and measures; and three days afterwards I received, through the channel of the public papers, the speech of Sir John Riggs Miller, of April 13th, in the British House of Commons, on the same subject. In the report which I had prepared, and was then about to give in, I had proposed the latitude of 38°, as that which should fix our standard, because it was the medium latitude of the United States; but the proposition before the National Assembly of France, to take that of 45° as being a middle term between the equator and both poles, and a term which consequently might unite the nations of both hemispheres, appeared to me so well chosen, and so just, that I did not hesitate a moment to prefer it to that of 38°. It became necessary, of course, to conform all my calculations to that standard—an operation which has been retarded by my other occupations.

These circumstances will, I hope, apologize for the delay which has attended the execution of the order of the House; and, perhaps, a disposition on their part to have due regard for the proceedings of other nations, engaged on the same subject, may induce them still to defer deciding ultimately on it till their next session. Should this be the case, and should any new matter occur in the meantime, I shall think it my duty to communicate it to the House, as supplemental to the present report.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most profound respect,

Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.

The Secretary of State, to whom was referred, by the House of Representatives, to prepare and report a proper plan or plans. for establishing uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States, in obedience thereto, makes the following report:

To obtain uniformity in measures, weights, and coins, it is necessary to find some measure of invariable length, with which, as a standard, they may be compared.

There exists not in nature, as far as has been hitherto observed, a single subject or species of subject, accessible to man, which presents one constant and uniform dimension.

The globe of the earth itself, indeed, might be considered as invariable in all its dimensions, and that its circumference would furnish an invariable measure; but no one of its circles, great or small, is accessible to admeasurement through all its parts, and the various trials to measure definite portions of them, have been

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of such various result as to show there is no dependence on that operation for certainty.

Matter, then, by its mere extension, furnishing nothing invariable, its motion is the only remaining resource.

The motion of the earth round its axis, though not absolutely uniform and invariable, may be considered as such for every human purpose. It is measured obviously, but unequally, by the departure of a given meridian from the sun, and its return to it, constituting a solar day. Throwing together the inequalities of solar days, a mean interval, or day, has been found, and divided, by very general consent, into 86,400 equal parts.

A pendulum, vibrating freely, in small and equal arcs, may be so adjusted in its length, as, by its vibrations, to make this division of the earth's motion into 86,400 equal parts, called seconds of mean time.

Such a pendulum, then, becomes itself a measure of determinate length, to which all others may be referred to as to a standard.

But even a pendulum is not without its uncertainties.

1. The difficulty of ascertaining, in practice, its centre of oscillation, as depending on the form of the bob, and its distance from the point of suspension; the effect of the weight of the suspending wire towards displacing the centre of oscillation; that centre being seated within the body of the bob, and therefore inaccessible to the measure, are sources of considerable uncertainty.

2. Both theory and experience prove that, to preserve its isochronism, it must be shorter towards the equator, and longer towards the poles.

3. The height of the situation above the common level, as being an increment to the radius of the earth, diminishes the length of the pendulum.

4. The pendulum being made of metal, as is best, it varies its length with the variations in the temperature of the atmosphere.

5. To continue small and equal vibrations, through a sufficient

length of time, and to count these vibrations, machinery and a power are necessary, which may exert a small but constant effort to renew the waste of motion; and the difficulty is so to apply these, as that they shall neither retard or accelerate the vibrations.

1. In order to avoid the uncertainties which respect the centre of oscillation, it has been proposed by Mr. Leslie, an ingenious artist of Philadelphia, to substitute, for the pendulum, a uniform cylindrical rod, without a bob.

Could the diameter of such a rod be infinitely small, the centre of oscillation would be exactly at two-thirds of the whole length, measured from the point of suspension. Giving it a diameter which shall render it sufficiently inflexible, the centre will be displaced, indeed; but, in a second rod not the (1) six hundred thousandth part of its length, and not the hundredth part as much as in a second pendulum with a spherical bob of proper diameter. This displacement is so infinitely minute, then, that we may consider the centre of oscillation, for all practical purposes, as residing at two-thirds of the length from the centre of suspension. The distance between these two centres might be easily and accurately ascertained in practice. But the whole rod is better for a standard than any portion of it, because sensibly defined at both its extremities.

2. The uncertainty arising from the difference of length requisite for the second pendulum, or the second rod, in different latitudes, may be avoided by fixing on some one latitude, to which our standard shall refer. That of 38°, as being the middle latitude of the United States, might seem the most convenient, were we to consider ourselves alone; but connected with other nations by commerce and science, it is better to fix on that parallel which bids fairest to be adopted by them also. The 45th, as being the middle term between the equator and pole, has been heretofore proposed in Europe, and the proposition has been lately renewed there under circumstances which may very Jossibly give it some effect. This parallel is distinguished with us also as forming our principal northern boundary. Let the completion of the 45th degree, then, give the standard for our union,

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