Board of Chosen Freeholders v. State Bank

The Vice-Chancellor.

The claim of the state rests upon a prerogative right of the crown of Great Britain, the contention being that the state succeeded to all royal rights, in virtue of its sovereignty, when the crown was displaced here as the sovereign power. The right of the crown in this particular is clear. *269Anciently the king might, by his writ of protection, prevent any subject from suing his debtor until his debt was paid. By statute 25 Edw. III, ch. 19, its-despotic rigor was so far mitigated as to allow the subject to obtain a judgment against the king’s debtor, and, upon paying the…