If severity, however, in the laws of debtor and creditor have any tendency to support credit, the confiding portion of the community had little reason to complain at Athens, since the spirit of this branch of Athenian jurisprudence was unusually stern. The man who obtained the loan of money and fraudulently withheld his security, was deemed to have committed a capital offence, nor could his high rank or honourable connexions skreen him from punishment.[1594] For it was considered, observes the orator, that an offender of this description not only defrauded the individuals with whom he dealt, but also made an attempt against the sources of public prosperity, commercial operations depending not on the borrower but on the lender, without whose coöperation no ship, or captain, or passenger, can move. On which account the most effective protection was afforded them by law. ----- Footnote 1594: Dem. in Phorm. § 17. Mr. Bœckh, if the English translation exactly represents his meaning, understands this passage differently, and his interpretation is more favourable to the Athenian law: “Even a citizen, who, in his capacity of a merchant, _withdrew_ from a creditor a pledge for a sum vested in bottomry, could be punished with loss of life.” (Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 69.) It may be doubted, however, whether οὐ παρασχόντα τὰς ὑποθήκας can mean anything more than “withholding the securities;” and I, therefore, suppose Bœckh’s translators to have employed the verb “withdraw” for “withhold.” -----