When the bankrupt had sworn the ordinary oath in a cessio, the Lords refused to put an oath in more extensive terms.
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The pursuer of a bonorum having given her oath, that there was no fraudulent deed done since the disposition whereby the pursuer cesserat and disponed omnia bona;
It was urged, That the pursuer should declare also, that no fraudulent deed had been done by her to defraud the creditors, whether before or after the disposition; which was refused by the Lords, in respect that the ordinary oath given by such pursuers did run in the terms foresaid, that they had made no fraudulent right since the subscribing of the disposition. Some of the Lords were of opinion, that the pursuer should have declared, that she had done no fraudulent deed at any time; seeing cessio bonorum is an extraordinary remedy, indulged to persons who are become lapsi upon some extraordinary occasion, without their own fault or fraud, and upon that account deserved favour, which was not to be given to fraudatores who at any time had taken indirect ways to prejudge their creditors; and if the pursuer, the very day before she subscribed the cession and disposition, had made an anterior right to prejudge her creditors, it were most inconvenient and absurd, that her oath should only be received in these terms, that she had made no disposition or fraudulent deed since the granting of the disposition in favours of the creditors; and as to the pretence of custom, and the conception of the oath, it ought not to be respected, seeing it cannot be said, that the oath of bankrupts, in the terms that it are now urged, was desired and refused; and if there had been any defect in the conception of the oath, it ought to be helped.
