“A verdict having been rendered in this case, at April Sessions, 1807, and a new trial awarded, the cause now came on again to be tried. The defendant being indebted to the plaintiff, in a certain sum of money, was, in September, 1804, discharged under the insolvent law of this State. The plaintiff, afterwards, arrested the defendant in the State of Delaware, for the same debt, and during his confinement under the process, he obtained from the defendant, four promissory notes for sixteen hundred dollars; for which he gave a receipt, expressing that these notes were in full of the defendant’s endorsement of a certain note of one Felix Imbert, provided that the said notes are paid. The plaintiff, after the notes in question became due, brought this suit; and a meeting of the plaintiff and defendant, with a view to a settlement, took place at the office of a Mr. Duplessis . . . When the defendant offered to give evidence of the agreement made at Duplessis’s office, it, was opposed by the plaintiff’s counsel, upon the ground that payment refers to the time of the action brought; and that in this Court, where there is an equity and a law side, no evidence short of actual payment, and even that, antecedent to the action brought, could be given; though it was admitted, that under an old law of this State, operating upon the State tribunals, which unite the law and equity jurisdictions, any evidence may be given, which tends to show that the debt ought not to be paid. The agreement in this case, having never been executed, cannot, upon any principle, be given in evidence on this plea.”