him, if he will call again-in the interval you dif cover his story to be made up of lies-this difcovery, no doubt, releafes you from your promife. One who wants your fervice, defcribes the bufine's or office for which he would engage you-you promife to undertake it-when you come to enter upon it, you find the profits lefs, the labour more, or fome material circumftance different from the account he gave you-In fuch cafe you are not bound by your promife.

2. When the promise is understood by the promifee to proceed upon a certain fuppofition, or when the promifer apprehended he fo understood it, and that fuppofition turns out to be false; then the promife is not binding.

This intricate rule will be beft explained by an example. A father receives an account from abroad of the death of his only fon-foon after which he promifes his fortune to his nephew-The account turns out to be falfe-the father, we fay, is released from his promife; not merely because he never would have made it, had he known the truth of the cafe-for that alone will not do-but because the nephew alfo himself understood the promife to proceed upon the fuppofition of his coufin's death; or at least his uncle thought he fo understood it; and could not think otherwite. The promife proceeded upon this fuppofition in the promifer's own apprehenfion, and, as he believed, in the apprehension of both parties; and this belief of his is the precise circunftance which fets him free. The foundation of the rule is plainly this, a man is bound only to fatisfy the expectation which he intended to excite. whatever condition therefo e he intended to subject that expectation to, becomes an effential condition of the promise.

Errors, which come not within this defeription, do not anul the obligation of a promife. I promise a candidate my vote-prefently another candidate

appears,

appears, for whom I certainly would have reserved it, had I been acquainted with his defign. Here therefore, as before, my promise proceeded from an error; and I never fhould have given fuch a promise, had I been aware of the truth of the cafe, as it has turned out-but the promisee did not know this he did not receive the promise fubject to any such condition, or as proceeding from any fuch fuppofition-nor did I at the time imagine he fo received it-This error, therefore, of mine, must fall upon my own head, and the promise be observed notwithstanding. A father promises a certain fortune with his daughter, fuppofing himself to be worth fo much-his circumftances turn out, upon examination, worse than he was aware of. Here again the promise was erroneous, but, for the reafon affigned in the laft cafe, will nevertheless be ob ligatory.

The cafe of erroneous promises is attended with fome difficulty; for to allow every mistake, or change of circumftances, to diffolve the obligation of a promise, would be to allow a latitude, which might evacuate the force of almost all promifes: and, on the other hand, to gird the obligation fo tight, as to make no allowances for manifest and fundamental errors, would, in many inftances, be productive of great hardship and abfurdity.

It has long been controverted amongst moralists, whether promises be binding, which are extorted by violence or fear. The obligation of all promifes refults, we have feen, from the neceflity or the ufe of that confidence which mankind repofe in them. The question, therefore, whether these promises are binding, will depend upon this, whether man

kind, upon the whole, are benefited by the confidence placed in fuch promises? A highwayman attacks you-and being disappointed of his booty, threatens or prepares to murder you-you promise with many folemn affeverations, that, if he will fave your life, he fhall find a purse of money left for him, at a place appointed-upon the faith of this promife he forbears from farther violence. Now your life was faved by the confidence reposed in a promise extorted by fear; and the lives of many others may be faved by the fame. This is a good confequence. On the other hand, confidence in promises like thefe greatly facilitates the perpetration of robberies. They may be made the inftruments of almoft unlimited extortion. This is a bad confequence; and in the queftion between the importance of thefe oppofite confequences refides the doubt concerning the obligation of such of fuch promifes.

There are other cafes which are plainer; as where a magiftrate confines a diftuber of the public peace in jail, till he promise to behave better; or a prifoner of war promises, if fet at liberty, to return within a certain time. These promifes, fay moralifts, are binding, becaufe the violence or durefs is just; but, the truth is, because there is the fame ufe of confidence in thefe promifes, as of confidence in the promifes of a perfon at perfe& liberty.

Vows are promifes to God. The obligation cannot be made out upon the fame principle as that of other promifes. The violation of them, neverthelefs, implies a want of reverence to the Supreme Being; which is enough to make it finful.

There

There appears no command or encouragement in the Christian scriptures to make vows; much less any authority to break through them, when they are made. The few inftances of vows which we read of in the New Testament were religiously observed.

*

The rules we have laid down concerning promises are applicable to vows. Thus Jephthah's vow,

taken in the fense in which that tranfaction is commonly understood, was not binding; because the performance, in that contingency, became unlawful.

* A&s xviii. 18. xxi. 23.

СНА Р. VI.

CONTRACTS.

CONTRACT is a mutual promife. The ob

A ligation therefore of contracts; the fenfe in

which they are to be interpreted; and the cafes where they are not binding, will be the fame as of promises.

From this principle established in the last chapter, "that the obligation of promifes is to be measured "by the expectation, which the promiser any how "voluntarily and knowingly excites," refults a rule, which governs the construction of all contracts, and is capable, from its fimplicity, of being applied with great cafe and certainty, viz. That,

Whatever

Whatever is expected by one fide, and known to be fo expected by the other, is to be deemed a part or condition of the contract.

The feveral kinds of contracts, and the order in which we propofe to confider them, may be exhibited at one view, thus:

T

CONTRACTS OF SAL E.

HE rule of justice, which wants most to be inculcated in the making of bargains, is, that the feller is bound in confcience to disclose the

faults of what he offers to fale. Amongst other methods of proving this, one may be the following:

I fuppofe it will be allowed, that to advance a direct falfehood in recommendation of our wares, by afcribing to them fome quality which we know that they have not, is difhoneft. Now compare with this the defigned concealment of fome fault, which we know that they have. The motives and the effects of actions are the only points of comparifon, in which their moral quality can differ:

but