The instrument, though a mortgage only, embraced the whole of their property, covering probably all its available value, and though a nominal extension of time was given, yet it was expressly provided that if any other creditor sued the debtors for any cause of action, or if the factory was shut down and ceased to do business, the whole sum secured should become at once due and payable and the mortgage might be enforced. When a debtor knows himself to be insolvent—when he knows that his other unsecured creditors may at any moment bring on the crisis which it is his professed object to avert, and that by the very means by which he delays it as regards one creditor, he deprives himself of all means of meeting the demands of the others, in such circumstances, where the extraneous compulsion of pressure or a special obligation is wanting, and the giving of the security is to the knowledge of both parties the debtor’s voluntary act, (see Butcher v. Stead, L.R. 7 H.L. 839; 25 W.R. 463), I cannot say that a Judge is wrong in holding, on the contrary I think he ought to hold, that there could be no bonâ fide expectation that an extension of time would be of any avail, and that the intent necessarily to be attributed is the intent to prefer.
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