be liberated from custody, and to quash the writs of capias. Before entering upon the objections so well put by the counsel of defendants, I shall refer to the conditions upon which the remedy of a capias ad respondendum is allowed by law to a plaintiff. The Code of Civil Procedure enacts, Art. 798: This writ is obtained upon an affidavit of the plaintiff, his book-keeper, clerk, or legal attorney, declaring that the defendant is personally indebted to the plaintiff in a sum amounting to or exceeding $40, and that the deponent has reason to believe and verily believes, for reasons specially stated in the affidavit, that the defendant is about to leave immediately the Province of Canada, with intent to defraud his creditors in general, or the plaintiff in particular, and that such departure will deprive the plaintiff of his recourse against the defendant." Art. 806: "A writ of capias cannot issue for any debt created out of the Province of Canada, nor for any debt under $40." Having given the text of the law, I shall now give the substance of the affidavit impugned, that non-professional, equally with professional gentlemen, may understand the question at issue, on a subject of such general interest as that of the remedy of imprisonment conferred on the creditor in certain exceptional cases against his debtor. The affidavit is made by Molson, who takes, as his addition, President of the Moisie Iron Company, a body politic and corporate, having its principal place of business at the City of Montreal: he makes oath that "K. Olsen is personally indebted to the Moisic Iron Company, in the sum of $293, for that, whereas, at Christiana, in Norway, in April last, it was agreed between K. Olsen and the said Company that Olsen should serve the Company in such capacity as the Manager of the same might deem expedient, at the current rate of wages, for the term of one year from the date of his arrival at the works, to wit, at Moisie; and Olsen, then and there, acknowledged that he was indebted to the Company in the sum of $93.69, advanced to him for the payment of his passage, with his family, and for the purchase of provisions for the voyage;" that he entered the service, and, subsequently, left it without cause and against the directions and orders of the managers and officers of the Company to their damage of $293. The affidavit then proceeds: "This deponent further states that he has reason to believe and verily believes that Olsen is about immediately to leave the Dominion of Canada, with intent to defraud the Moisic Iron Company, and, for reasons of his said belief, this deponent saith that Olsen joined with others, at Moisic, in resisting the lawful commands of the manager and officers of the Company, and, with menaces, demanded his discharge,

and struck work, and, afterwards, left Moisic in a schooner, with a great number of others, the said party leaving declaring that they were going to join their friends in Chicago, in the United States; that Olsen, by so leaving the service of the Company, with the others to the number of fifty, or thereabouts, has caused a stoppage of the works of the Company." The defendant's objections to this affidavit are numerous, and may be classified into substantial and technical objections. I shall first consider the substantial objections: The affidavit on its face, does not appear to have been made by any of that category of persons which the law requires should make it; it is not made by the plaintiff's book-keeper, clerk, or legal attorney. Molson does not say that he bears any of these relations to the Company, he does not even swear that he is president of this Company, though that would not better matters, but simply assumes that addition. A man does not swear to the truth of his addition, and perjury could not, therefore, be assigned, if such addition were false. The business of every Corporation is transacted by a special body, or board of directors, and the acts of such body or board evidenced by a legal vote are as completely binding upon the Corporation and as complete authority to their agents as the most solemn acts done under the Corporate seal; individually, the directors, in no sense, represent or bind the Company; if there be a vote of the board of direction of the Moisic Iron Company, naming Molson the legal attorney of the Company, then he would have been authorized to take this affidavit, and it is to be regretted that he did not assume a quality he possessed and comply with the law, but if he has no other authority than that derived from being president to justify his making it, then he had no more power than any other director, and a director has no more power than the merest stranger, that is, no power at all; and the arrest in this case is not shewn to be the act of plaintiff. I have been thus explicit in expressing my opinion, because the objection is a substantial one, and I should regret if it were looked upon as a technical one. But, quite irrespective of the powers of a president, the law directing that the affidavit shall be taken by certain persons only, exclused all other persons from the right of doing so, and the person taking the affidavit, in this and all like cases, should be the book-keeper, clerk, or legal attorney of the plaintiff, and should assume the quality on the face of it. Where an act authorizing a creditor to redeem, required an affidavit of the amount due to be made by the creditor or his agent, it was held the affidavit must state, in express terms, that the deponent

was agent, and merely naming him as such in the affidavit would not answer. It would be easy to refer to authorities to show that Judges have no power of extending the meaning of a Statute beyond its words, and deciding by the equity and not the language; but there is enough in the law itself to show that the Legislature wisely intended to leave nothing to interpretation, nothing to the discretion of Judges. It names all the category of persons who shall give the evidence upon which this extraordinary remedy shall rest: thus, in designating the book-keeper it did not conceive that that would include another description of clerk, and hence it confers the power on the clerk, nor that these designations could be held to include a legal attorney. All latitude of interpretation appears to me to be guarded against in the law itself-and in the whole course of my experience, dating back to a time when our Courts were presided over by very eminent men, I know of no case in which the language of the law was not insisted upon by our Courts, as essential to the validity of affidavits of this nature, except the case of affidavits taken by cashiers of banks, in which it was held that a cashier is by law the legal attorney of his bank—this is the only exception. It would be extraordinary if at this late day, I were to hold that the bar, with the law under their eyes, were not bound to adopt its language. Could anything else be expected to follow from my doing so, than confusion and distrust of the Courts? There is nothing but what is right and legal in saying that the language of the law shall be used, and that no equivalents and still less terms broader or more limited shall be admitted. As long as I have the honor of occupying a seat on this Bench, I shall obey the law by requiring in such affidavits that the terms it prescribes and no others shall be used. The next question is of the same nature as the last. After mentioning who shall take such affidavits, the law, plainly and explicitly, prescribes that the deponent shall swear that the person proceeded against is about to leave immediately the Province of Canada with a fraudulent intent. The deponent swears that the party is about immediately to leave the Dominion of Canada; this again is a departure from the language prescribed and that is enough, and it is as wide a departure from its meaning. There is no law that justities this affidavit. It is further objected to this affidavit that no sufficient reason is given for believing that the defendant was immediately about to leave the Dominion of Canada, "and for reasons for his belief this deponent saith that K. Olsen joined with others at Moisic aforesaid in resisting the lawful commands of the manager and officer of

the company, and with menaces demanded his discharge and struck work." So far the affidavit swears to the resistance of lawful commands without specifying what these commands were. If this allegation is material it ought to have stated the commands that the Court might judge of their lawfulness, but in truth neither this fact nor that of their leaving Moisic have any bearing upon the objection taken; whether the defendant's departure gives the plaintiff any recourse against him will depend upon the legality of his hiring according to the laws of Norway, and perhaps upon the manner in which the company fulfilled towards him the obligations they have contracted; but there is nothing so far to justify the conclusion, that when leaving Moisic the defendant intended to go beyond the limits of the Dominion of Canada. The affidavit proceeds, "and, afterwards, left Moisic in a schooner with a great number of others, the said party leaving, declaring that they were going to join their friends in Chicago, in the United States." This then is the reason. That defendant should be held responsible for what he said himself is quite intelligible, but that the defendant, by entering a schooner to come to Quebec, should be liable to imprisonment here because a party on board said they were going to join their friends in Chicago seems to me no reason at all. Either defendant was one of the party who said they were going to Chicago, and then the affidavit should have boldly and frankly stated the fact, or it was the others who said so. As identically the same affidavit is made in all the cases before me, it follows that not one of them said he was going to Chicago, or rather is sworn to have said so. As the schooner is represented as containing some fifty persons, there were thirty-three persons who may have said. they were going to Chicago, and who, in so far as it appears, were permitted to go unmolested by the plaintiff. This loose, elastic assertion seems to me wholly insufficient to ground an arrest of the defendant. According to law a capias can only issue for a debt created in the Province of Canada, or rather the law says that no capias shall issue for a debt created outside of the Province of Canada. Does the affidavit in this case show a debt upon which the capias can issue? It alleges an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant, without saying how and by means of whom the plaintiff bound himself in this agreement, by which the defendant was to serve the Company at the current rate of wages, for the term of one year from the date of his arrival at Moisic; and that the defendant then and there, that is in April, and in Norway, acknowledged he was indebted to the said. Company in a sum of $93.69, advanced to him for the

payment of his passage and for the purchase of provisions for the voyage. It is not stated whether such contracts were in writing or verbal, nor in any form binding on the defendant by the laws of Norway. Two contracts are sworn to have taken place-one a contract of hiring for a year, the other a loan of money. The object or motive for the loan in no way affects its nature. As to the loan, the money was advanced in Norway, and the acknowledgment was given there no promise of repayment anywhere or at any time is alleged to have been made by the defendant. The effect or value of said acknowledgment will be regulated by the laws of Norway, all the legal consequences attach to it according to that law, thus with reference to $93.69 it is a claim to recover back so much money lent to the defendant in Norway, and for this sum as well as the damages the defendant is now detained by capias. I cannot believe that there can be any two opinions that for the recovery of this amount the law expressly denies the plaintiff the right to issue a capias at all. As to the damage claimed by plaintiff for breach of the alleged contract of hiring, and which the Judge fixed for the purposes of the arrest in the cause at $50, where was that created? It may as well be stated emphatically there can be no conflict of laws in the present case, because the question is as to the remedy, and that is regulated by the laws of the country where it is resorted to. So that the question is, do the laws of the Province of Quebec admit of a capias issuing in an action for breach of a contract entered into in Norway? The right of plaintiff to damages rests upon a legal contract, according to the laws of Norway. If the contract is not binding on the defendant by those laws, this action must fail from want of foundation. An action for breach of contract is an action to enforce a contract. This, then, is an action to enforce a foreign contract. Such an action lies in the Courts of this country, but our law says that in such an action no capias shall issue. The plaintiff's right of action was not created in this country, though he seeks to enforce it here (1). Whenever this case comes up on the merits, this Court will be called upon to say whether by the laws of Norway defendant did or did not bind himself to serve plaintiff for the space of a

(1) Felix, Droit International. "La question de la légitimité de l'engagement, celle de savoir s'il y a lieu d'accorder ou de refuser l'action résultant d'un contrat doit être également appréciée suivant la loi du lieu où le contract a été passé. Le principe général en cette matière est que les parties contractantes ont eu l'intention de se conformer dans leurs conventions, à la loi du lieu où celles-ci ont été consenties et sont devenues parfaites, et par suite de les soumettre à cette loi; en d'autres termes, que la validité intrinsèque, la substance du lien (rinculum juris) des conventions, dépend de la loi du lieu où elles ont reçu leur perfection, l'acte valable ou nul d'après cette loi, l'est également partout."