If the person of the body politic, being in one man, borrow money of a stranger, that is, of one that is not of the same body (for no letters need limit borrowing, seeing it is left to men’s own inclinations to limit lending), the debt is the representative’s. For if he should have authority from his letters to make the members pay what he borroweth, he should have by consequence the sovereignty of them; and therefore the grant were either void, as proceeding from error, commonly incident to human nature, and an insufficient sign of the will of the granter; or if it be avowed by him, then is the representer sovereign, and falleth not under the present question, which is only of bodies subordinate. No member therefore is obliged to pay the debt so borrowed, but the representative himself; because he that lendeth it, being a stranger to the letters and to the qualification of the body, understandeth those only for his debtors that are engaged; and seeing the representer can engage himself and none else, has him only for debtor, who must therefore pay him out of the common stock, if there be any, or, if there be none, out of his own estate.

If he come into debt by contract or mulct, the case is the same.