lord huntingtower was a "client" of ford who faced financial difficulties. huntingtower borrowed large sums of money during his minority and was unable to meet the repayments. at this period bankruptcy laws applied only to traders, whereas non-traders in debt were classed as insolvent, subject to imprisonment and seizure of their belongings. to avoid this happening, lord huntingtower claimed he was a trader. ford, who was a creditor, disputed this and brought a case to annul the fiat, but lost this on a technicality. huntingtower did spent a period in debtors' prison, but admitted at a later bankruptcy hearing (9 august 1844) that if he had acted on ford's advice earlier, he would not have been placed in such an unfortunate position.