GUARANTEE (sometimes spelt "guarantie" or "guaranty"; an O. Fr. form of "warrant," from the Teutonic word which appears in German as _wahren_, to defend or make safe and binding), a term more comprehensive and of higher import than either "warrant" or "security," and designating either some international treaty whereby claims, rights or possessions are secured, or more commonly a mere private transaction, by means of which one person, to obtain some trust, confidence or credit for another, engages to be answerable for him. In English law, a guarantee is a contract to answer for the payment of some debt, or the performance of some duty, by a third person who is _primarily_ liable to such payment or performance. It is a _collateral_ contract, which does not extinguish the original liability or obligation to which it is accessory, but on the contrary is itself rendered null and void should the latter fail, as without a principal there can be no accessory. The liabilities of a surety are in law dependent upon those of the principal debtor, and when the latter cease the former do so likewise (_per_ Collins, L.J., in _Stacey_ v. _Hill_, 1901, 1 K.B., at p. 666; see _per_ Willes, J., in _Bateson_ v. _Gosling_, 1871, L.R. 7 C.P., at p. 14), except in certain cases where the discharge of the principal debtor is by operation of law (see _In re Fitzgeorge--ex parte Robson_, 1905, 1 K.B. p. 462). If, therefore, persons wrongly suppose that a third person is liable to one of them, and a guarantee is given on that erroneous supposition, it is invalid _ab initio_, by virtue of the _lex contractus_, because its foundation (which was that another was taken to be liable) has failed (_per_ Willes, J., in _Mountstephen_ v. _Lakeman_, L.R. 7 Q.B. p. 202). According to various existing codes civil, a suretyship, in respect of an obligation "non-valable," is null and void save where the invalidity is the result of personal incapacity of the principal debtor (Codes Civil, France and Belgium, 2012; Spain, 1824; Portugal, 822; Italy, 1899; Holland, 1858; Lower Canada, 1932). In some countries, however, the mere personal incapacity of a son under age to borrow suffices to vitiate the guarantee of a loan made to him (Spain, 1824; Portugal, 822, s. 2, 1535, 1536). The Egyptian codes sanction guarantees expressly entered into "in view of debtor's want of legal capacity" to contract a valid principal obligation (Egyptian Codes, Mixed Suits, 605; Native Tribunals, 496). The Portuguese code (art. 822, s. 1) retains the surety's liability, in respect of an invalid principal obligation, until the latter has been legally rescinded.