Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Insolvent   Listen
adjective
Insolvent  adj.  (Law)
(a)
Not solvent; not having sufficient estate to pay one's debts; unable to pay one's debts as they fall due, in the ordinary course of trade and business; as, in insolvent debtor.
(b)
Not sufficient to pay all the debts of the owner; as, an insolvent estate.
(c)
Relating to persons unable to pay their debts.
Insolvent law, or Act of insolvency, a law affording relief, subject to various modifications in different States, to insolvent debtors, upon their delivering up their property for the benefit of their creditors; bankruptcy law. See Bankrupt law, under Bankrupt, a.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Insolvent" Quotes from Famous Books



... there is no such thing as a wig or gown connected with the administration of justice. The gentlemen of the bar being barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those functions as in England) are no more removed from their clients than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors are, from theirs. The jury are quite at home, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances will permit. The witness is so little elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, that ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... the Nansemond country, vexed with the paltry persecutions of Governor Berkeley, and later by fugitives from the bloody revenge which he delighted to inflict on those who had been involved in the righteous rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon. These had been joined by insolvent debtors not a few. Adventurers from New England settled on the Cape Fear River for a lumber trade, and kept the various plantations in communication with the rest of the world by their coasting craft plying to Boston. Dissatisfied companies from Barbadoes seeking a less torrid climate next ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... through the province by rail on my wedding journey. At Dorchester, the next village beyond Moncton, I was shown a place where insolvent debtors were kept "on ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... no sooner discharged, in consequence of an act of parliament for the relief of insolvent debtors, than I went to the house of my creditor, whom I cudgelled without mercy; and, that I might leave nothing undone of those things which I ought to have done, my next stage was to Westminster ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... conciliate with transparent flatteries, have marked me for their prey from the cradle—I don't suppose that cradle was paid for, by the bye. I wonder whether there is an avenging deity whose special province it is to pursue the insolvent—a Nemesis of the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... said Putney, "that your father's creditors have brought suit against his estate, and have attached his property so that you cannot sell it, or put it out of your hands in any way. If the court declares him insolvent, then everything belonging to him must go ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... spoils of their winter's hunt. In the early autumn, when the Indians are about to leave for their hunting grounds, much business is done, but little in the way of barter. At that season the Indians procure their outfit for the winter. Being usually insolvent, owing to the leisurely time spent upon the tribal camping grounds, they receive the necessary supplies on credit. The amount of credit, or "advances," given to each Indian seldom exceeds one third of the value of his average annual catch. That is the white man's ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... rather less involved than he had expected. Isaac had escaped dying insolvent. Though a heavy mortgage delivered Rickman's in the Strand into Pilkington's possession, the City house was not only sound, as Isaac had said, but in a fairly flourishing condition. Some blind but wholly salutary instinct had made him hold ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the poet depicted: "The freeborn Briton to the dungeon chained," and "Lives crushed out by secret, barbarous ways, that for their country would have toiled and bled." One of Britain's authors was moved to indite: "No modern nation has ever enacted or inflicted greater legal severities upon insolvent ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... had to bear a still further sorrow to-day," said Mr. Ness. "On the part of Mr. Johnson and myself I have a very painful duty to perform to you as well as to her. Mr. Wilkins has died insolvent. I grieve to say there is no hope of your ever receiving ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Saxe-Coburg, looking forward to a reign under which virtue and a sense of public duty would again be the attributes of royalty. In this session, too, it conferred a boon upon Ireland, which earned little gratitude, by the consolidation of the British and Irish exchequers. Ireland was virtually insolvent before this measure was passed. With the union of the exchequers the union of the countries was completed. The administration, discredited by its financial policy, was strengthened in June by the acquisition of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... &c. n.; needy, necessitous, distressed, pinched, straitened; put to one's shifts, put to one's last shifts; unable to keep the wolf from the door, unable to make both ends meet; embarrassed, under hatches; involved &c. (in debt) 806; insolvent &c. (not paying) 808. Adv. in forma pauperis[Lat]. Phr. zonam perdidit[Lat]; "a penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree" [Lady Nairne]; a pobreza no hay verguenza[Sp]; "he that is down can fall no lower" [Butler]; poca roba poco pensiero[It]; "steeped . . . in poverty ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... return to the year 1709. People never ceased wondering what had become of all the money of the realm. Nobody could any longer pay, because nobody was paid: the country-people, overwhelmed with exactions and with valueless property, had become insolvent: trade no longer yielded anything—good faith and confidence were at an end. Thus the King had no resources, except in terror and in his unlimited power, which, boundless as it was, failed also for want of having something to take and to exercise itself upon. There was no more circulation, no means ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for his harem, and it ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman

... prayer, maybe, just gabbled through; A random text—for any one will do." Then gently, lovingly, with look intense, He leaned towards us— "Is this common sense? No person in his rightful mind will try To run his business so, lest by-and-by The thing collapses, smirching his good name, And he, insolvent, ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn

... a long walk, for after all what is the good of hurrying back to shop when you are not only insolvent but very soon to die? His dinner and the east wind lost their sinister hold upon his soul, and when at last he came back along the Fishbourne High Street, his face was unusually bright and the craving hunger of the dyspeptic ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... take you)—Ver. 334. At Rome, insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors till their debts ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... that please and some that bore, Some that threaten prison fetters (Metaphorically, fetters Such as bind insolvent debtors)— Invitations by ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... think of, of her acquaintance, and can, perhaps, if not yourself, recommend the person most likely to influence her. Shelley had engaged to clear him of all demands, and he has gone down to the deep insolvent. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Laws.—It sometimes happens, because of general depression in trade throughout the country, on account of losses, or for other reasons, that business men become heavily involved in debt. They are said to be insolvent. Now, it is but just that such property as they have should be divided in some equitable way among the creditors. A bankrupt law secures such a division, and the debtor is, at the same time, freed from all legal obligation to pay the debts which cannot be met in this way. The first law of Congress ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... papers! They made my fortune—and yet, I know not how it is, the deed has cost me many a pang. Yet it seemed innoxious! the old man dead—insolvent; myself starving; his son ignorant of all, to whom too they could be of no use, for it required thousands to work them, and even with thousands they could only be worked by myself. Had I not done it, I should ere this probably have been swept from the surface of the earth, worn out with penury, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... insolvent debtor; that is, a person who is unable to pay all his just debts. A bankrupt law is a law which, upon an insolvent's giving up all his property to his creditors, discharges him from the payment of his ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... meddle no more with him; yet joining with the accusers against Scipio's brother Lucius, he succeeded in obtaining a sentence against him, which condemned him to the payment of a large sum of money to the state; and being insolvent, and in danger of being thrown into jail, he was, by the interposition of the tribunes of the people, with much ado dismissed. It is also said of Cato, that when he met a certain youth, who had effected the disgrace of one ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... and philosophy, albeit but a poor brand of each. We are invited to occupy ourselves only with spiritual cash, because the universe is spiritually insolvent. The immediately gratifying feelings are the only feelings that the world can guarantee. Omar Khayyam is a philosopher-poet, because his immediate delight in "youth's sweet-scented manuscript" is part of a consciousness that vaguely sees, though it cannot grasp, "this sorry ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... the grammar-school in our town, where he gained the rudiments of education, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek; and where he might, possibly, have become well-educated, had he not—his father dying insolvent—been taken from school, and, much to his grief, apprenticed to the trade he ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... deem themselves invested with lieutenancies or great senatorial appointments, that they may gorge themselves with the provincial luxuries and wealth? No doubt you heard in what way our friend the philosopher gave the place of prtorian prefect to one who but three days before was a bankrupt,—insolvent, by G—, and a beggar. Be not you content: that same gentleman is now as rich as a prefect should be; and has been so, I tell you, any time these three days. And how, I pray you, how—how, my good sir? How but out of the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... Company insolvent?" he asked. "You say that the bank closed its doors this morning? Have you any idea of its condition? Looted? Is it entirely cleaned out? Is there no chance for depositors? I wish to inquire about the trust funds, bonds and other investments belonging to a friend of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... for a hospital, and, at the time of his resignation, the treasury is empty, save 450,000 francs, half of which he puts in his pocket. What an administration!—In the presence of this debtor, evidently becoming insolvent, all people, far and near, interested in his business, consult together with alarm, and debtors are innumerable, consisting of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, employees, lenders of every kind and degree, and, in the front rank, the capitalists, who have put all their means for life ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... from which abuses the English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor is termed be-blah. Meranggau is the condition of a married woman who remains as a pledge for a debt in the house of the creditor of her husband. If any attempt should be made upon her person the proof of it annuls the debt; but should she bring an accusation of that nature, and be unable to ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... which afterwards identified the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp in St. Paul's as Duke Humphrey's. But the strange error was accepted, and the aisle in which the said tomb lay was commonly known as "Duke Humphrey's Walk," and it was a favourite resort of insolvent debtors and beggars, who loitered about it dinnerless and in hope of alms. And thus arose the phrase of "Dining with Duke Humphrey," i.e., going without; a phrase, it will be seen, founded on a strange blunder. The real grave ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham

... which are your duties, you do not know where your true riches are. And if you have all that men can acquire of the lower things of life, whether of what is generally called wealth or of other material benefits, and have that great indebtedness standing against you, you are but an insolvent after all. Here is the treasure that will make you rich, because it will pay your debts, and endow you with capacity enough to meet all future expenditure—viz. the possession of the forgiving and cleansing grace of God which is in Jesus Christ. If you have that, you are rich; if you do not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... was left to William Penn, then a rising young Quaker about thirty years old, dreaming of ideal colonies in America. Penn awarded Fenwick a one-tenth interest and four hundred pounds. Byllinge soon became insolvent and turned over his nine-tenths interest to his creditors, appointing Penn and two other Quakers, Gawen Lawrie, a merchant of London, and Nicholas Lucas, a maltster of Hertford, to hold it in trust for them. Gawen Lawrie afterwards ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... answer. All my old friends turned their backs upon me. My action went against me—I had not a penny to defend it. Solomonson proved my wife's debt, and seized my two thousand pounds. As for the detainer against me, I was obliged to go through the court for the relief of insolvent debtors. I passed through it, and came out a beggar. But fancy the malice of that wicked Stiffelkind: he appeared in court as my creditor for 3L., with sixteen years' interest at five per cent, for a PAIR OF TOP-BOOTS. The old thief produced them in court, ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... if you didn't," replied Briggs. "Take it from me, the trustees will withdraw the last dollar they have invested in it. You couldn't pay. And then they'd declare you insolvent, appoint Susan Walton receiver, and take the whole ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... of course, that such a person, though not uncommon in novels, very rarely occurs in real life; and if he occur at all, it is with his ideal perfections very much toned down. In actual life, such a hero would become known in the Insolvent Court, and would frequently appear before the police magistrates. He would eventually become a billiard-marker; and might ultimately be hanged, with general approval. If the man, in his unclipped proportions, did actually exist, it would be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... into many scrapes, out of which his father's money had one way or another released him; but that source of safety had now failed. Old Rollet having been too busy with the affairs of the nation to attend to his business, had died insolvent, leaving his son with nothing but his own wits to help him out of future difficulties, and it was not long before their exercise was called for. Claudine Rollet, his sister, who was a very pretty girl, had attracted the attention of Mademoiselle de Bellefonds' ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... for some time. Ralph Wotchett also had expectations. By profession he was an architect, but perhaps because of his expectations, he had always had bad luck. The involutions of the reasons why his clients died, became insolvent, abandoned their projects, or otherwise failed to come up to the scratch were followed by him alone in the full of their maze-like windings. The house they inhabited, indeed, was one of those he had designed for a client, but the 'fat chough' had refused to go into ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... over-speculation produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826 Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'[596] In 1828 all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.[597] ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... national bankrupt law I still regard as very desirable. The Constitution having given to Congress jurisdiction of this subject, it should be exercised and uniform rules provided for the administration of the affairs of insolvent debtors. The inconveniences resulting from the occasional and temporary exercise of this power by Congress and from the conflicting State codes of insolvency which come into force intermediately should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... a large class of cases in which the correct application of the law is very doubtful, with lines of decisions on both sides; as, for example, in cases of the distribution of funds of an insolvent corporation, constitutional questions, and the relative equities of conflicting interests. These are fair examples of controversies where a lawyer may rightfully and righteously accept a retainer upon any of half-a-dozen sides. ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... forwarding | eksped-o, -ado[8] | ekspeh'-doh, -dah'doh free on board | afranke sur sxipon | afrahn'keh soor (f.o.b.) | | sheep'ohn freightage | frajta prezo | frahy'tah preh'zo guarantee, a | garantio | garahntee'o imports | importoj | impohr'toy insolvent | nesolventa | nehsolvehn'ta insurance policy | asekura poliso | ahsehkoor'ah polee'so — premium | asekura premio | ahsehkoor'ah prehmee'oh insure, to | asekuri | ahsehkoo'ree introduction | prezento | prehzehn'toh —, letter of | prezenta letero | prehzehn'ta leteh'ro invest, to (money) ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann

... drawer of the desk, then drew forth a long strip of paper covered with figures. "All the Stacey companies," he said, "have been suffering from the depression that exists in the trade at present. They are insolvent. Glance over that, Stacey. It is a summary of the preliminary report of the accountants of the district attorney who have been going ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... old Book about 'righteousness and temperance and judgment to come,' and make a natural effort to turn our minds away from the contemplation of the subject, because it is painful and unpleasant. Do you think it would be a wise thing for a man, if he began to suspect that he was insolvent, to refuse to look into his books or to take stock, and let things drift, till there was not a halfpenny in the pound for anybody? What do you suppose his creditors would call him? They would not compliment him on either his honesty or his prudence, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Aurillac," says the Marquis de Mirabeau,[5222] "there is industry, application and economy without which there would be only misery and want. This produces a people equally divided into being, on the one hand, insolvent and poor and on the other hand shameful and rich, the latter who, for fear of being fined, create the impoverished. The taille once assessed, everybody groans and complains and nobody pays it. The term ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... gentleman who, having nothing to lose, surrendered himself to his creditors, was a director of more than twenty lines. A third was Provisional Committeeman to fifteen. A fourth, who commenced life as a printer, who became insolvent in 1832 and a bankrupt in 1837, who had negotiated partnerships, who had arranged embarrassed affairs, who had collected debts, and turned his attention to anything, did not disdain, also, to be a Railway promoter, a Railway ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... the enclosed letter to its address, or discover the person to whom it is directed, you will confer a favour upon the Venetian creditor of a deceased Englishman. This epistle is a dun to his executor, for house-rent. The name of the insolvent defunct is, or was, Porter Valter, according to the account of the plaintiff, which I rather suspect ought to be Walter Porter, according to our mode of collocation. If you are acquainted with any dead man of the like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Codrus shivers o'er his bags of gold, By famine wither'd, and benumb'd by cold, I mark his haggard eyes with frenzy roll, And feast upon the terrors of his soul; The wrecks of war, the perils of the deep, That curse with hideous dreams the caitiff's sleep; Insolvent debtors, thieves, and civil strife, Which daily persecute his wretched life, With all the horrors of prophetic dread, That rack his bosom while the mail is read. 160 Safe from the road, untainted by the school, A judge by birth, by destiny a fool, While the young lordling struts in native ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... returnite. Insidious insida. Insight elsciado. Insignificant sensignifa. Insincere nesincera. Insinuate proponeti. Insipid sengusta. Insist insisti. Insnare allogi, kapti. Insobriety malsobreco. Insolent insultema. Insoluble nesolvebla. Insolvent nepagokapabla. Insomnia sendormo. Insomuch tial ke. Inspect ekzameni. Inspector inspektoro. Inspiration inspiro. Inspiration (breath) enspiro. Inspire enspiri. Inspire inspiri. Instalment partpago. Install logxigi. Instance ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... became the friend of the Regent, and to repair his shattered fortunes he engaged, at the advice of Lau, in those disastrous financial enterprises that paved the way for the Revolution. He failed completely in his ventures, left Paris insolvent, and took refuge in the Chateau de Chamondrin, where he hoped to escape the wrath of his creditors. But they complained to the king, and brought such influence to bear upon him that Louis XV., the Well-beloved, who had just ascended the throne, informed the Marquis ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... country. However, Slovakia's fiscal position remains weak; inflation and unemployment remain high; and the government is only now addressing the structural problems inherited from the MECIAR period, such as large inefficient enterprises, an insolvent banking sector and high inter-company debts, and declining tax and social support payments. Furthermore, the government faces considerable public discontent over the government's austerity package, persistent high unemployment - which reached ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... great men held a large portion of the community in dependence by means of advances at enormous usury. The law of debt, framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, was the host horrible that has ever been known among men. The liberty and even the life of the insolvent were at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. Children often became slaves in consequence of the misfortunes of their parents. The debtor was imprisoned, not in a public jail under the care of impartial public functionaries, ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... high-sounding epithets; but I disdain to follow the example of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack, and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a felonious drysalter returned from exile, an hospital stump-turner, a decayed staymaker, a bankrupt printer, or insolvent debtor, released by act of parliament. I do not pretend to administer medicines without the least tincture of letters, or suborn wretches to perjure themselves in false affidavits of cures that were never performed; nor ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... death which I had feared and dreaded, but of something worse—disgrace. My father was an embezzler, a thief. He had absconded, had run away, like the coward he was, taking with him what was left of his stealings. The banking house of which he had been the head was insolvent. The police were on his track. And, worse and most disgraceful of all, he had not fled alone. There was a woman with him, a woman whose escapades had furnished the papers with ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... there may be in Italy, it will never associate itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by democracies which say they ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... not slaves, the property of their master; for afterwards it is assumed that he may sell them, not as an ordinary right, but as the special penalty incurred by an insolvent debtor. A king, in ancient times and oriental regions, entered into pecuniary transactions with his servants on a great scale. One man, who owes all to the personal favour of the sovereign, is the governor of a wealthy province. Bound by no written law, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... himself invited to take charge of the Electric Light Company at a time when it was insolvent and in disgrace with the people, and he took the Corporation in hand on the specific understanding that he should be allowed to put his soul into it, that he should be allowed his own way for three years—in believing in people, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... I don't. I know your uncle's address: yes! you may well turn pale, and gnaw your lip—other people can plot and scheme as well as yourself: if I'm not paid before I leave this place, and that will be by to-night's mail, your uncle shall be told that his nephew is an insolvent gambler; and the old tutor, the Rev. Dr. Mildman, shall have a hint that his head pupil is little ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... money supports some of the leading presses of the country is now more clearly established. Editors to whom it loaned extravagant sums in 1831 and 1832, on unusual time and nominal security, have since turned out to be insolvent, and to others apparently in no better condition accommodations still more extravagant, on terms more unusual, and some without any security, have also ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... was declared at this period to be "altogether insolvent." This is the reason probably, if he was not in the mean time satisfied that his claim was untenable, that his case does not appear to have been brought under the notice of parliament again, and that he did not persist in his attempts to regain possession of Dalvennan (Id. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... were so many of his fellow-countrymen, deeply in debt, in spite of the repartimiento of Indians which had been allotted to him. Unfortunately for Balboa a law had been passed forbidding any vessels bound for the mainland taking insolvent debtors on board, but his ingenuity was equal to this emergency, for he had himself rolled in an empty barrel to the vessel which was to carry Encisco to Darien. The chief of the expedition had no choice ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... Miss Vernon," I answered. "I grieve not for the loss of the money, but for the effect which I know it will produce on the spirits and health of my father, to whom mercantile credit is as honour; and who, if declared insolvent, would sink into the grave, oppressed by a sense of grief, remorse, and despair, like that of a soldier convicted of cowardice or a man of honour who had lost his rank and character in society. All this I might have prevented by a trifling sacrifice of the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... paper, once a fine property, has in their hands sunk below zero, and they built New Tipperary on land to which they had no title; so that the money was completely thrown away. Almost every Board of Guardians in the country is insolvent, except in those cases where the Government has kicked out the Poor Law Guardians elected by the Parish, and restored solvency by sending down paid men to run the concern for a couple of years. This has been done ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... art of signing with his uncle's. Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to procrastinate the crash; and, when it came, when prying eyes began to be applied to every joint of his behaviour, two questions could not fail to be addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent. Where is Mr Joseph Finsbury? and how about your visit to the bank? Questions, how easy to put!—ye gods, how impossible to answer! The man to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and—eh! what was this?—possibly ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... appeared at the present period little else than the shadow of what he had been. He not only lost heavily the usurious credit he had given, in consequence of the wide-spread poverty and crying distress of the wretched people, who were mostly insolvent, but he suffered severely by the outrages which had taken place, and doubly so in consequence of the anxiety which so many felt to wreak their vengeance on him, under that guise, for his heartlessness and ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... rewarded; but that, being an unfortunate Man himself, and owing much Money, he would not for his Right-hand set a Gentleman into the hands of a Bailiff. The Information carrying such an honest Face with it, cannot fail of being received with due Gratitude. The Insolvent is now obliged to look to himself, and instead of stealing to Chelsea or Kensington for a little Air, is forced to confine himself to bad Punch and worse Wine at some blind Hedge Coffee-house or Tavern within the Verge of the Court. The Rascal by whom ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... He was clerk in the office of Bordin, procureur of Chatelet. In 1798 he lent one hundred crowns in gold to Monegod his life-long friend. This sum not being repaid, M. Alain found himself almost insolvent, and was obliged to take an insignificant position at the Mont-de-Piete. In addition to this he kept the books of Cesar Birotteau, the well-known perfumer. Monegod became wealthy in 1816, and he forced M. Alain to accept ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... of the Surface school was one day heard to boast that from his continually breaking his promises made to his creditors, they must imagine him to have been brought up in a court:—"Yes," replied a byestander, "the Insolvent's Court." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various

... did not die insolvent. At his death, a subscription was got up for the support of his wife and daughter. Churchill was imprisoned for debt, occasioned by his dissoluteness and extravagance,—Cowper characterizing him as "spendthrift alike of money and of wit." Chatterton, reduced ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... the site of the very rooms once tenanted by the Canterbury pilgrims; the gallery probably differing but little in appearance from what it was when Chaucer frequented it in search of good wine. The landlord eventually became insolvent; the paltry tavern was shut up, and the bedrooms were dismantled. In that plight they might be seen some years ago, may still possibly be seen—empty, dusty, dreary—ranged above ground-floor premises which do duty as a parcels' conveyance ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... "Hard-shell Baptists," having, as is usually the case with hard cases, hard names. I use the expression "once known," since, if I mistake not, the order has, in these latter days, deceased; dying of sheer decrepitude, with no weeping mourners around it, being intestate and insolvent, and is now to be numbered with the things that were—an old man's tale, the blunder of an hour.[3] That so broad and warm and genial a nature as that of our hero should have gone for refuge and spiritual comfort to a creed so narrow, cold, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... Mint was a sanctuary for insolvent debtors and a nest of infamy in general. It stood over ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... give poor Blanche's history, or what I know of it; but to you I am certain I can do so safely. To begin then at the beginning: She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest bankers in this city, who died several yeas ago insolvent, and left his wife and child destitute. Of course, their former friends cut them, all except a very few; and they took a suite of rooms in the Third Municipality, and removed thither with their few articles of furniture, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... if we are only careful to remember that duties enter into it quite as much as rights. Our duties may overbalance our rights. A man may owe more than he is worth, and therefore if a money value is set on his collective legal relations he may be what is called insolvent. But for all that the entire group of rights and duties which centres in him is not ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... the first stage, are very severe. In the Germanic middle age the insolvent was disgraced. He became the slave of his creditor (zu Hand und Halfter), who might imprison him, fetter him (stoecken und bloecken), and probably kill him. A Norwegian law allowed the creditor, when his debtor would not work and his friends would not ransom him, to take him before ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... 1828. Such obligations as these, however, would have been nothing when compared with Sir Walter's means, had all his bills on Constable been duly honoured, and had not the printing firm of Ballantyne and Co. been so deeply involved with Constable's house that it necessarily became insolvent when he stopped. Taken altogether, I believe that Sir Walter earned during his own lifetime at least 140,000l. by his literary work alone, probably more; while even on his land and building combined he did not apparently spend ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... 'I am Philip Ormond Berkley; how do you do!' And he said, 'How do you do!' And I said, 'I'm a relation,' and he said, 'I believe so.' And I said, 'I was educated at Harvard and in Leipsic; I am full of useless accomplishments, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and I am otherwise perfectly worthless. Can you ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... flagrant lies. He declared at first that he had paid the hundred thousand livres with his own money but when reminded of his various bankruptcies, the claims of his creditors, and the judgments obtained against him as an insolvent debtor, he made a complete volte-face, and declared he had borrowed the money from an advocate named Duclos, to whom he had given a bond in presence of a notary. In spite of all his protestations, the magistrate committed him to solitary confinement ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to stamps, I think that they might be reduced, at any rate for a number of years, to a nominal amount. In fact, I would make any sacrifice for the purpose of changing land from the hands of insolvent and embarrassed owners into those of solvent persons, who would employ it in a manner usefully and advantageously to the country and themselves. There is another proposition with, regard to the waste lands of Ireland. The Government made a proposal last ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... week and who was an Hashish-eater to boot; and she called him, saying, "Hither, O donkey-boy!" So he came to her and she asked, "Knowest thou my son the dyer?"; whereto he answered, "Yes, I know him." Then she said, "The poor fellow is insolvent and loaded with debts, and as often as he is put in prison, I set him free. Now we wish to see him declared bankrupt and I am going to return the goods to their owners; so do thou lend me thine ass to carry the load and receive ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... The emperor, under false expectations, was tempted into making engagements which he could not keep; the Government, at a period which otherwise and for many years to come was one of awful crisis, became partially insolvent; the shepherd was dishonoured, the flocks were ruined; and had that Persian armament which about ten years later laid siege to Constantinople then stood at her gates, the Cross would have been trampled ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... have Convinc^d me of the Notorious Violation of the Rights of Mankind and which I think no Rational Man will Ever try to Justify. America my Earnest Prayer is that thou mayst preserve thy Own Freedom from any Insolvent Invaders who may attempt to Rob the of the Same—but be Sure to let Slavery of all kinds ever be Banish^d from ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman

... true treasure? Gold says, "Not in me;" And "Not in me," the Diamond. Gold is poor; India's insolvent: seek it ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... point of interception, to march with more ease at a greater distance from the enemy, and thus to render the haste required less damaging. This last way is the worst of all, it generally turns out like a new debt contracted by an insolvent debtor, and leads to greater embarrassment. There are cases in which this course is advisable; others where there is nothing else left; also instances in which it has been successful; but upon the whole it is certainly ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... said. "They didn't find the road insolvent, but they are going to make it so in the shortest possible order. A rate war will do it quicker than anything ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... 1824 Haydon left his lodgings, and took the lease of a house in Connaught Terrace, for which he paid, or promised to pay, a hundred and twenty pounds a year, a heavy rent for a recently insolvent artist. Fortunately, he acquired with the house a landlord of amazing benevolence, who took pot-boilers in lieu of rent, and meekly submitted to abuse when nothing else was forthcoming. As soon as he was fairly settled, Haydon arranged the composition of a large picture of 'Pharaoh ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... very poor persons, individually—in the commercial sense of the term—insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has been somewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called 'the capitalization of their honesty and industry.' The way in which this is done is remarkably ingenious. The credit society is organized in ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... to calculate the benefits which this acquisition of musical skill might prove to the English people. What bloodshed and tribulation it would prevent. Weare, or Maria Marten, like Stradella, might have disarmed their assassins; the Insolvent Act would be obsolete, and duns defeated; since hundreds of improvident wights, like Palma, might, by their strains, soften the hearts of their creditors, and draw tears from sheriff's officers. Chancery-lane would be depopulated, and Cursitor-street ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various

... we had come to California, and settled at San Jose (where the only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with so kind a friend as you) the family, as you know, was broken up by the death of both my parents in the same week. My father died insolvent and the homestead was sacrificed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to relatives in the East, but owing to your kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of age, obtained employment in San Francisco, in different quarters ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... or to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had, moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as this was a point on which the government was naturally ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... number of freemen on whom it exclusively fell, crushed every attempt at productive industry. It was the same thing as if all the farmers on each estate were to be bound to make up, annually, the same amount of rent to their landlord, no matter how many of them had become insolvent. We know how long the agriculture of Britain, in a period of declining prices and frequent disaster, would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... appearance something between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the women, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a supper of steak and onions, with bottled stout, on a Saturday night, as a great treat, now finds one hundred pounds a month insufficient to pay her wine-merchant and her confectioner. I am ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... might have provoked a less fiery people than the Southrons. At the inception of the struggle a large amount of Southern indebtedness was held by the people of the North. To force payment from the generous but insolvent debtor—to obtain liquidation from the Southern planter—was really the soulless and mercenary object of the craven Northerners. Let the common people of England look to this. Let the improvident literary hack, the starved impecunious Grub Street ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... This should have given some alarm to the commissioners appointed to manage the reservoir; and the danger was actually pointed out, and insisted upon so long ago as 1844. But the commission became insolvent, and went into Chancery; so nothing was done. A sort of safety-valve is provided in such works, exactly of the same nature as the waste-pipe of a common cistern. It consists of a hollow tower of masonry rising ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... Jennie so much as the aristocracy, and although she had written to New York for letters of introduction that would be useful in London, she was too impatient to await their arrival. Thus she came to secure the services of Lady Willow, the widow of Sir Debenham Willow, who had died abroad, insolvent, some years before, mourned by the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... the coming of a new Marchioness and a new Lord Popenjoy. Occasion had been taken to give some details of the Germain family, and public allusion had even been made to the marriage of Lord George. These are days in which, should your wife's grandfather have ever been insolvent, some newspaper, in its catering for the public, will think it proper to recall the fact. The Dean's parentage had been alluded to, and the late Tallowax will, and the Tallowax property generally. It had also been declared that the Marchesa ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... office in which young Greeley was learning his trade became insolvent, and Greeley, then in his twentieth year, was released from his indentures. He tramped from office to office as a journeyman printer, and his father having removed to the then "new country of western Pennsylvania," the youngster, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... me! what a clattering of white sticks and yellow sticks would be about his head! what a storm of gold keys would fly about the ears of the minister! what a shower of Georges, and thistles, and medals, and collars of S.S. would assail him at his first entrance into the antechamber, after an insolvent Christmas quarter!—a tumult which could not be appeased by all the harmony of the new year's ode. Rebellion it is certain there would be; and rebellion may not now, indeed, be so critical an event to those who ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various kinds had befallen her; a bank broke—an investment failed—she went into a small business and became insolvent—then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all work—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... you not refuse to accept composition at the meeting of creditors until he undertook privately to pay you your debt in full; and did he not give you bills accepted by the insolvent firm; and then, when he set up in business again, did he not pay you the dividend upon those bills of yours, signed as they ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac

... father's shop, and set up business for himself in the same neighbourhood, where he continued for two or three years, living, as it was supposed, upon the produce of his matrimonial connexion. At length, however, it was discovered that he was insolvent, and bankruptcy became the consequence. Here he remained till affairs were arranged, and then returned to London with his wife and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... Wild at length grew a little more gentle, and with a sigh said, "I confess I have the least reason of all mankind to censure another for an imprudence of this nature, as I am myself the most easy to be imposed upon, and indeed have been so by this count, who, if he be insolvent, hath cheated me of five hundred pounds. But, for my own part," said he, "I will not yet despair, nor would I have you. Many men have found it convenient to retire or abscond for a while, and afterwards have paid their debts, or at least handsomely compounded ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... due time returned from their mission with the doleful intelligence that the late Captain St. Leger had died insolvent, so far as his foreign wealth was concerned. They swore in open court, for Mr. Temple summoned them to appear and obliged them to take oath, that they received not sufficient from the assets to defray the expenses ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... mechanics and other hidalgos were, exempt—had been able to earn and to lay by enough to offer the monarch fifty millions of dollars to purchase themselves out of semi-slavery into manhood, and yet found their offer rejected by an almost insolvent king. Nothing could exceed the idleness and the frivolity of the upper classes, as depicted by contemporary and not unfriendly observers. The nobles were as idle and as ignorant as their inferiors. They were not given to tournays nor to the delights of the chase and table, but were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... powers of Europe." Burdened with debts which were the legacy of an era of speculation, a considerable part of the population, especially of the farmer class, was demanding measures of relief which threatened the security of contracts. "Laws suspending the collection of debts, insolvent laws, instalment laws, tender laws, and other expedients of a like nature, were familiarly adopted or openly and ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... shall think it necessary to hand over any [insolvent] persons to those who have become security for them, assume that right with confidence, because that will most effectually relieve my mind when I shall learn that this matter has been finally disposed of by you[734]. For if I were present ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings—which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day; when he said, 'Pell,' he said, 'no false delicacy, Pell. You're a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.' Those were his very words. 'My lord,' I said, 'you flatter me.' 'Pell,' he said, ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood

... furniture, etc.—to be held in trust for his creditors (the estate itself had been settled on his eldest son when he married), and bound himself to discharge annually a certain amount of the liabilities of the insolvent firm. He then, with his characteristic energy, set about the performance of his herculean task. He took cheap lodgings, abridged his usual enjoyments and recreations, and labored harder than ever. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... an insolvent bank, learning that it was about to be visited by the official Noser into Things, placed his own personal note for a large amount among its resources, and, gaily touching his guitar, awaited the inspection. When the Noser came to the ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... purpose of a building society, but to the support of other undertakings in which the same persons were concerned who were the active managers of the society. The consequence was that the whole group of concerns became insolvent (Oct. 1892), and the Liberator depositors and shareholders were defrauded of every penny of their investments. Many of them suffered great distress from the loss of their savings, and some were absolutely ruined. The result was to weaken confidence in building ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... prevailing throughout the country, which give special preference to claims for wages or even for material furnished by "material men," have already been noted. It may be broadly stated that the presumption is that such claims are everywhere a preferred debt to be paid out of the estate of the insolvent, living or dead, in preference ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... say,' said Aunt Becky, rather stiffly, pulling him up; for though she had fought a round for poor George Anne Bellamy for Mossop's sake, she nevertheless had formed a pretty just estimate of that faded, good-natured, and insolvent demirep, and rather recoiled from any anecdotes ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... though both must pay in the mean time, yet if they complain, and make good their complaints, the whole parish is reimposed next year, in order to reimburse them. If any of the contributors become bankrupt or insolvent, the collector is obliged to advance his tax; and the whole parish is reimposed next year, in order to reimburse the collector. If the collector himself should become bankrupt, the parish which elects him must answer for his conduct to the receiver-general of the election. But, as it might ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the entire satisfaction of his sovereign and of the nation. But while prosperity seemed to smile with increasing brilliancy, adversity was hovering near. In 1826, Archibald Constable and Company, the famous publishers of his works, became insolvent, involving in their bankruptcy the printing firm of the Messrs Ballantyne, of which Sir Walter was a partner. The liabilities amounted to the vast sum of L102,000, for which Sir Walter was individually responsible. To a mind less balanced by native intrepidity and fortified ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... the lawyers were enabled to save from the insolvent bank but a very scanty portion of that wealth in which Richard Templeton had rested so much of pride. The title extinct, the fortune gone—so does Fate laugh at our posthumous ambition! Meanwhile Mr. Douce, with considerable plunder, had made ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... teacher; one of the ugliest countenances he had that need be exhibited—enough, as we say, to spean weans. The man was always extremely precise in the quality of everything about him; his dress, accommodations, and everything else. He became insolvent, poor man, and, for some reason or other, I attended the meeting of those concerned in his affairs. Instead of ordinary accommodations for writing, each of the persons present was equipped with a large sheet of drawing-paper and a swan's quill. It was mournfully ridiculous enough. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... purpose of these organisations is to create credit as a means of introducing capital into the agricultural industry. They perform the apparent miracle of giving solvency to a community composed almost entirely of insolvent individuals. The constitution of these bodies, which can, of course, be described only in broad outline here, is somewhat startling. They have no subscribed capital, but every member is liable for the entire debts of the association. Consequently the association takes ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... Monarchicke Tragedies, Darius, Croesus, The Alexandraean Tragedy, and Julius Caesar (1603-7), the motive of which is the fall of ambition, and which, though dignified, have little inspiration. He also assisted James I. in his metrical version of the Psalms. He d. insolvent in London. The grant of Nova Scotia which he had received became valueless owing to the French conquests ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... and all persons bought from foreigners were condemned to perpetual slavery. Others became slaves for limited periods,—freemen who married slaves, insolvent debtors, servants out of employment, and various other classes. As the legal interest of money was forty per cent., the enslavement of debtors must have been very common, and Russia was even then largely ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... mortify me, and was resolved if I possibly could to Prevent her seeing that her scheme succeeded. "Neither Madam; he was a Wine Merchant." "Aye, I knew he was in some such low way—He broke did not he?" "I beleive not Ma'am." "Did not he abscond?" "I never heard that he did." "At least he died insolvent?" "I was never told so before." "Why, was not your FATHER as poor as a Rat" "I fancy not." "Was not he in the Kings Bench once?" "I never saw him there." She gave me SUCH a look, and turned away in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... both. Nor do the provisions of the decemviral code, with which we are acquainted, show that enlightened regard to natural justice which characterized jurisprudence in its subsequent development. It allowed insolvent debtors to be treated with great cruelty; they could be imprisoned for sixty days, loaded with chains, and then might be sold into foreign slavery. It sanctioned a barbarous retaliation—an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But it gave a redress for lampoons or libels, allowed an appeal ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... the last two years he edited the Persian poem by Hatefi, of Laile and Majnoon, the Petrarch and Laura of the Orientals. The book was published at his own cost; and the profits of the sale appropriated to the relief of insolvent debtors in the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... that she retained any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did—went upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died there. He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; and an attorney's clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease, and which ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... dared to whisper my insolent affection, believe me, even then, your presence controlled my spirit as no other woman had. I bent to you then in pride and power. The station that I could then offer you was not utterly unworthy of your perfection. I am now a beggar, or, worse, an insolvent noble, and dare I—dare I to ask you to share the fortunes that are broken, and the existence that ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... Netherlands, a claim disputed, then recognized by the Dutch in 1949. In 1975 Indonesian troops occupied Portuguese East Timor. Current issues include implementing IMF-mandated reforms (particularly restructuring and recapitalizing the insolvent banking sector), effecting a transition to a popularly elected government, addressing longstanding grievances over the role of the ethnic Chinese business class and charges of cronyism and corruption, alleged human rights violations by ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... The poetical partners should bankrupts be made; If from dealings too large, we plunge deeply in debt, And Whereas issue out in the Muses Gazette; We'll on you our assigns for Certificates call; Though insolvent, we're honest, and ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere

... me that I ought to turn my disappointment to some use. This was about ten years ago, when his own life fell to pieces. I had been associated with magazines for some time, and knew how little that was really good found its way into the plainer people's homes. At Mac's suggestion I bought an insolvent monthly, and began to remodel it. 'You've got the home-and-children bug; well, do something for other people's'—was the way Mac put it to me. Later we started the two other magazines, always keeping before us our aim ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... it is said that we advocates get our money for nothing," he remarked, after a pause. "I have freed one insolvent debtor from a totally false charge, and now they all flock to me. Yet every such case costs enormous labour. Why, don't we, too, 'lose bits of flesh in the inkstand?' as some writer or other has said. Well, as to your case, or, rather, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... education. Learning that she was heiress to a considerable property left by a grandfather, the society took active steps in France to secure to her her rights. Unfortunately, the agent who had possession of the estate became insolvent after having squandered the property, and it was impossible to recover it. The society continued to care for the young girl up to the day of her marriage to a young man enjoying a regular salary of $1,200, and worthy of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... best he could get—is it probable that his application would be rejected? or that the officer would do more than inquire whether the bank then paid specie, without troubling his head to ascertain whether it merely made a show of paying it, and whether it would not be insolvent in a month. Let it not be said, that if doubts were entertained of the solidity of the bank, its paper might be immediately converted into specie; for, in the first place, the bank may be some hundreds of miles distant; and though it were in the immediate ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... or land scrip should be received in payment for public lands. The occasion of this was that while land sales were very rapidly increasing, the receipts hitherto had consisted largely in the notes of insolvent banks. Land speculators would organize a bank, procure for it, if they could, the favor of being a "pet" bank, issue notes, borrow these as individuals and buy land with them. The notes were deposited, when they would borrow them again to buy land with, and so on. As there was little ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... from the Consul for life, any fixed salary: I took from his drawer what was necessary for my expenses as well as his own: He never asked me for any account. After the transaction of the bill on the insolvent Cisalpine Republic he said to me, at the beginning of the winter of 1800, "Bourrienne, the weather, is becoming very bad; I will go but seldom to Malmaison. Whilst I am at council get my papers and little articles from Malmaison; here is the key of my secretaire, take out everything ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... the charter, reflecting the highest credit on the Commissioners, and bringing timely aid to an embarrassed community.' In little more than two years, however, the Mississippi Bank became totally insolvent, having lost the entire five millions invested in it by the State. Immediately on this having transpired, the Governor of the State sent a message to the Legislature recommending them to repudiate (this was the first time the word was used) their obligations, being ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in every circle, married to men not by any means insolvent, who have unlimited credit, but never any money of their own. They have carriages but no car fare; fine stationery, monogrammed and blazoned with a coat of arms, but not by any chance a ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... attention to us, we found a gloom overhanging the place: as at Whydah, its glories have departed, nor shall they ever return. The jollity, the recklessness, the gold ounces thrown in handfuls upon the monte-table, are things of the past: several houses are said to be insolvent, and the dearth of cloth is causing actual misery. Palm and ground-nut oil enable the agents only to buy provisions; the trade is capable of infinite expansion, but it requires time—as yet it supports only the two non-slaving houses, English and Dutch. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... have known that La Salle was insolvent. Tonty had long served without pay. Douay says that he made the stay of the party at the fort very agreeable, and speaks of him, with some apparent compunction, as "ce brave Gentilhomme, toujours inseparablement attache aux interets ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... man has as much right to fail in business as he has to get sick and die. In most cases it is more honourable to fail than to go on. Every insolvent is not necessarily a scoundrel. The greatest crime is to fail rich. John Bonner & Co., as brokers, had loaned money on deposited collaterals, and then borrowed still larger sums on the same collaterals. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... of tailors being generally acknowledged, it is almost needless to state, that the faintest indication of seediness will be fatal to your reputation; and as a presentation at the Insolvent Court is equally fashionable with that of St. James, any squeamishness respecting your inability to pay could only be looked upon as a want of moral courage upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... And there came a letter telling me that a man of whose name I had never heard had been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a legacy of three thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant relative of my own who had died peacefully and utterly insolvent eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir and representative, and I put the revolver back into ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... and require him instantly to put his hand into his pocket and bring out the amount of the bill, plus the amount of certain expenses, he thought that he did know. And he knew that were he in trade he would become a bankrupt; and he was well aware that such an occurrence would prove him to be insolvent. But he did not know what his creditors would immediately have the power of doing. That the fact of the bill having been dishonoured would reach the Board under which he served,—and, therefore, also the fact that he had had recourse to such bill transactions,—this ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... last. Management after management tried its fortunes in the doomed little house, but without success. Desperate adventurers seized upon it as a last resource, or chose it as a place wherein to consummate their ruin. The Olympic was contiguous to the Insolvent Debtors' Court, in Portugal Street, and from the paint-pots of the Olympic scene-room to the whitewash of the commercial tribunal there was but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Depositors withdraw, securities tumble, investigation and legal expenses begin, your financial associates get frightened or ashamed and desert you. Nothing is so squeamish or so retiring and nervous as money. Time will show that I was not insolvent at the time. The books will show a few technically illegal things, but so would the books or the affairs of any great bank, especially at this time, if quickly examined. I was doing no more than all were doing, but they wanted to get me ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... following the executioner, who led a young man by a rope tied about his neck. Inquiring the crime of the culprit, she was informed that he owed a hundred deenars, which being unable to pay, he was sentenced to be hung, such being the punishment of insolvent debtors in that city. The cauzee's wife, moved with compassion, immediately tendered the sum, being nearly all she had, when the young man was released, and falling upon his knees before her, vowed to dedicate his life to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... most restless one. It consists to-day of a few remnants of a past time, and a number of people eager to make fortunes, industrial Micawbers and speculators of whom one may amass a fortune, while ninety-nine become insolvent, and more than half of the ninety-nine live by perpetually ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... Bankruptcy. The people of Massachusetts, a commercial and manufacturing State from the beginning, have always desired a Bankrupt law. They were large dealers with other States and with other countries. Insolvent debtors in Massachusetts could not get discharge from their debts contracted in such dealings. The Massachusetts creditors having debts against insolvents in other States found that their debtors under the laws of those States either got preferences or made fraudulent assignments which they could ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... his own professed ideas as to the duties of the nobility, he has joined a commercial undertaking, for which he constantly draws bills which, as they fall due, threaten both his honor and his fortune, since they stamp him as a trader, and in default of payment may lead to his being declared insolvent; that these debts, which are owing to stationers, printers, lithographers, and print-colorists, who have supplied the materials for his publication, called A Picturesque History of China, now coming out in parts, are so heavy ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... were still more surprising. Mr. Dutton was leaving the firm. Though his father had died insolvent, and he had had to struggle for himself in early life, he was connected with wealthy people, and change and death among these had brought him a fair share of riches. An uncle who had emigrated to Australia at the time ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stood on end at the mere mention of the possibility of such a thing. Was not here a debt of the State of Arkansas of half a million of dollars? Had not the general government assumed that debt? Had they not employed trust-money? If Arkansas should declare herself insolvent to-morrow, Congress must pay that debt; they had ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... to keep himself and his crew in provisions for a week Felipe would anchor the navy and hang about the little telegraph office, looking like one of the chorus of an insolvent comic opera troupe besieging the manager's den. A hope for orders from the capital was always in his heart. That his services as admiral had never been called into requirement hurt his pride and patriotism. At every call he would inquire, gravely ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... system of taxation. The Boers have never been good taxpayers, and no Government has been able to enforce the proper payment of taxes due to the State. A decade after its establishment the Republic was practically insolvent. Even as early as 1857 the Government was compelled to issue mandaten, or bills, wherewith to raise money to buy ammunition, and to pay its servants. In 1866 a regular issue of paper money was sanctioned by the Volksraad. This was followed ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... attended with many novel circumstances, not only in the political sphere, but in the circle of money transactions. Among others, it shows that a government may be in a state of insolvency and a nation rich. So far as the fact is confined to the late Government of France, it was insolvent; because the nation would no longer support its extravagance, and therefore it could no longer support itself—but with respect to the nation all the means existed. A government may be said to be insolvent every time it applies to the nation to discharge ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... be dead—what would happen? You would leave debts, for, although you are solvent, you are only solvent because you have the knack of always putting your hand on money, and death would automatically make you insolvent. You are one of those brave, jolly fellows who live up to their income. It is true that, in deference to fashion, you are now insured, but for a trifling and inadequate sum which would not yield the hundredth part of your present income. ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... dependent. He seems to have regarded the merchants and bankers of State Street very much as a feudal baron regarded his peasantry. It was their privilege and duty to support him, and he repaid them with an occasional magnificent compliment. The result was that he lived in debt and died insolvent, and this was not the position which such a man as Daniel Webster ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... one of the heaviest losers, was elected to the chair, but beyond making a statement which told them nothing, he could do little. When he informed them that Lord Highcliffe had died practically insolvent, a murmur arose, a deep guttural murmur which was something between a hiss and a groan, and it was while this unpleasant sound was filling the room that ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... retain or keep invested a sum equal to about two-thirds of all the premiums paid on all existing policies. The moment they part with any portion of this reserve for any purpose whatsoever, they are declared insolvent and wound up by a receiver. In other words, the corporation is d——d if it does and the policy holder is d——d if it doesn't. That the latter gets the sulphur bath goes without saying. The four largest old system companies doing business ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann



Words linked to "Insolvent" :   nonstarter, solvent, belly-up, failure, bankrupt



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com