But if I can show that it is a personal security affecting the person and following it everywhere, whatever may be the law of France as to the form of proceeding, yet when the party is found in this or any other country, he may be proceeded against according to the rules and practice of the country in which he is resident."

(q) British Linen Co. v. Drummond, 10 B. & C. 903; Van Reimsdyk v. Kane,

1 Gallis. 371; Le Roy v. Crowninshield,

2 Mason, 151; Nash v. Tupper, 1 Caines, 402; Bank of United States v. Donnally, S Pet. 361; Buggies v. Keeler, 3 Johns. 263; Decouche v. Savetier, 8 Johns. Ch. 100; Lincoln v. Battelle, 0 Wend. 476; M'Elmoyle v. Cohen, 18 Pet. 312; Thibodeau v, Levassuer, 86 Me. 862.

(r) Williams v. Jones, 13 East, 439; Medbury v. Hopkins, 8 Conn. 472; Van Reimsdyk v. Kane, 1 Gallia. 371; Le Roy v. Crowninshield, 2 Mason, 161; Huber v. Steiner, 2 Bing. N. C. 202; Decouche v. Savetier, 3 Johns. Ch. 190; Buggies v. Keeler, 3 Johns. 268; Pearsall v. Dwight, 2 Mass. 84. Mr. Justice Story, in his Conflict of Laws, § 582, takes this distinction. "Suppose the statutes of limitation or prescription of a particular country do not only extinguish the right of action, but the claim or title itself, ipso facto, and declare it a nullity after the lapse of the prescribed period, and the parties are resident within the jurisdiction during the whole of that period, so that it has actually and fully operated upon the case, under such circumstances the question might properly arise, whether such statutes of limitation or prescription may not afterwards be set up in any other country to which the parties may remove, by way of extinguishment or transfer of the claim or title. This is a point which does not seem to have received as much consideration in the decisions of the common law as it would seem to require." In Don v. Lippman, 5 Clark & F. 16, Lord Brougham speaks of this as an excellent distinction. And it is approved of by Tindal, C. J., in Huber v. Steiner, 2 Bing. N. C. 202. But in Bulger v. Roche, 11 Pick. 86, where a debt was contracted in a foreign country, between subjects thereof, who remained there until the debt became barred by the law of limitations of such country, it was held, that such debt could be recovered in Massachusetts, the action having been brought within six years after the parties came into that commonwealth. And Shaw, C. J., said: "That the law of limitation of a foreign country cannot of itself be pleaded as a bar to an action in

1 A creditor whose claim has been barred under a State statute declaring that all demands against estates of deceased persons not legally exhibited within two years after the granting of the first letters of administration "shall be forever barred," cannot take out letters of administration and satisfy his claim out of real estate of the deceased in another State. Wernse v. Hall, 101 Ill. 423.

section of the statute of frauds, providing * that certain agreements shall not be enforced unless in writing, if made not to be performed within a year, does not make the contract void, but is a law of remedy only; and therefore such a contract made abroad, where it may be enforced because there is no such law, cannot be enforced here or in England where that law prevails. (s)

So the courts of one State, where a note is sued, will not enforce the laws of set-off of another State where it was made. (t) this commonwealth seems conceded, and is indeed too well settled by authority to be drawn in question. Bryne v. Crowninshield, 17 Mass. 66. The authorities, both from the civil and the common law, concur in fixing the rule, that the nature, validity, and construction of contracts is to be determined by the law of the place where the contract is made, and that all remedies for enforcing such contracts are regulated by the law of the place where such remedies are pursued. Whether a law of prescription or statute of limitation, which takes away every legal mode of recovering a debt, shall be considered as affecting the contract like payment, release, or judgment, which in effect extinguish the contract, or whether they are to be considered as affecting the remedy only by determining the time within which a particular mode of enforcing it shall be pursued, were it an open question, might be one of some difficulty. It was ably discussed upon general principles in a late case (Le Roy v. Crowninshield, 2 Mason's Rep. 161), before the Circuit Court, in which, however, it was fully conceded, by the learned judge, upon a full consideration and review of all the authorities, that it is now to be considered a settled question. A doubt was intimated in that case, whether, if the parties had remained subjects of the foreign country until the term of limitation had expired, so that the plaintiff's remedy would have been extinguished there, such a state of facts would not have presented a stronger case, and one of more serious difficulty. Such was the case in the present instance; but we think it sufficient to advert to a well-settled rule, in the construction of the statute of limitations, to show that this circumstance can make no difference. The rule is this, that where the statute has begun to run, it will continue to run, notwithstanding the intervention of any impediment, which, if it had existed, when the cause of action accrued, would have prevented the operation of the statute.

For instance, if this action accrued in Nova Scotia, in 1821, and the plaintiff or defendant had left that country in 1825, within six years, in 1828, after the lapse of six years, the action would be as effectually barred, and the remedy extinguished there, as if both had continued to reside in Halifax down to the same period. So that when the parties met here in 1829, so far as the laws of that country, by taking away all legal remedy, could affect it, the debt was extinguished, and that equally whether they had both remained under the jurisdiction of those laws till the time of limitation had elapsed, or whether either or both had previously left it The authorities referred to, therefore, must be held applicable to a case where both parties were subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign State, when the bar arising from its statute of limitations attached. The same conclusion results from the reason upon which these cases proceed, which is, that statutes of limitation affect only the time within which a legal remedy must be pursued, and do not affect the nature, validity, or construction of the contract. This reason, whether well founded or not, applies equally to cases where the term of limitation has elapsed, when the parties leave the foreign State, as to those where it has only begun to run before they have left the State, and elapses afterwards." And see Horton v. Horner, 16 Ohio, 146; Pratt v. Hubbard, 1 Greene (Iowa), 19; Hale v. Lawrence, 1 N. J. 714; Beardsley v. Southmayd, 3 Green, 171; Townsend v. Jennison, 9 How. 407; Nichols v. Rogers, 2 Paine, C. C. 487; Henry v. Sargeant, 18 N. H. 321; Martin v. Hill, 12 Barb. 631. Also, Ohio Civil Code (185), § 22; Indiana Civil Code (1862), § 216; Iowa Code (1861), § 1666.