Camfranque v. Burnell , 1 Wash. C. C. 340 ( 1806 )

BY THE COURT. We think that the defendant should be allowed to appear on common bail, for the following reasons: That those laws, which, in any manner, affect a contract, whether in its construction, in the mode of discharging it, or which control the obligation which the contract imposes, are essentially incorporated with the contract itself. The contract is a law which the parties impose upon themselves; subject, however, to the paramount law — the law of the country where it is made. Contracts thus made, and thus regulated, may be enforced by foreign tribunals, according to their own modes of proceeding, and such tribunals aim only to give effect to the contracts according to the laws which gave them validity. We think that the arreíé which has been read, had once a binding force. upon the contract, and upon the parties to it, from which they ought not to be discharged by a foreign tribunal, professing only to give effect to a contract so regulated: that this arreté protected the defendant against any further process upon the judgment, by means of execution, as much so, as if the plaintiff had bound himself upon record, to stay the execution, to a period not yet arrived; and, therefore, it protects him from arrest, which may, in its consequences, subject him to inconveniences, as great as if he were exposed to the full operation of an execution. Rule made absolute.