PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THERE is no vestige of the existence of bills of exchange* among the ancients, and the precise period of their introduction is somewhat controverted. It is, however, certain that • Il n'y a aucun vestige de notre contrat de change, ni des lettres de change, dans le droit Romain. Ce n'est qu'il n'arrivât quelquefois chez les Romains, que l'on comptât pour quelqu'un une somme d'argent dans un lieu à une personne, qui se chargeoit de lui en faire compter autant dans un autre lieu. Ainsi nous voyons, dans les lettres de Cicéron à Atticus, que Cicéron voulant envoyer son fils faire ses études à Athènes, s'informe si pour épargner à son fils de porter lui-même à Athènes l'argent dont il y auroit besoin, on ne trouveroit pas quelque occasion de le compter, à Rome, à quelqu'un qui se chargeroit de le lui faire compter à Athènes.-Epist. ad Att. xii. 24; xv. 25. Mais cela n'étoit pas la négociation de lettres de change telle qu'elle a lieu parmi nous; cela se faisoit par de simples mandats. Cicéron chargeoit quelqu'un de ses amis de Rome qui avoit de l'argent à recevoir à Athènes, de faire tenir de l'argent à son fils à Athènes; et cet ami, pour exécuter le mandat de Cicéron, écrivoit à quelqu'un des débiteurs qu'il avoit à Athènes, et le chargeoit de compter une somme d'argent au fils de Cicéron. Au reste, on ne voit point qu'il se pratiquât chez les Romains, comme parmi nous, un commerce de lettres de change: et nous trouvons au contraire, en la loi 4, § 1, ff. de naut. Fan., qui est de Papinien, que ceux qui prêtoient de l'argent à la grosse aventure aux marchands qui trafiquoient sur mer, envoyoient un de leurs esclaves pour recevoir de leur débiteur la somme prêtée lorsqu'il seroit arrivé au port où il devoit vendre ses marchandises; ce qui certainement n'auroit pas été néces they were in use in the fourteenth century. Indeed, they are mentioned as "letteres d'eschange" in the English Statute Book (3 Ric. 2, c. 3), as early as the year 1379. Though we find in our English reports no decision relating to them earlier than the reign of James the First.* It is probable that a bill of exchange was, in its original, nothing more than a letter of credit from a merchant in one country, to his debtor, a merchant in another, requesting him to pay the debt to a third person, who carried the letter, and happening to be travelling to the place where the debtor resided. It was discovered by experience, that this mode of making payments was extremely convenient to all parties: to the creditor, for he could thus receive his debt without trouble, risk or expense-to the debtor, for the facility of payment was an equal accommodation to him, and perhaps drew after it facility of credit-to the bearer of the letter, who found himself in funds in a foreign country, without the danger and incumbrance of carrying specie. At first, per saire, si le commerce des lettres de change eût été en usage chez les Romains. Quelques auteurs ont prétendu que l'usage du contrat de change et des lettres de change est venu de la Lombardie, et que les Juifs, qui y étoient établis, en ont été les inventeurs d'autres en attribuent l'invention aux Florentins, lorsqu'ayant été chassés de leur pays par la faction de Gibelins, ils s'établirent à Lyon et en d'autres villes. Il n'y a rien sur cela de certain, si ce n'est que les lettres de change étoient en usage dès le quatorzième siècle. C'est ce qui paroît par une loi de Venise de ce temps sur cette matière, rapportée par Nicholas de Passeribus, en son livre, De Script. Privat. lib. 3.-Pothier, Traité du Contrat de Change, Partie Prem.; Chap. 1, s. 1. Martin v. Boure, Cro. Jac. 6. haps, the letter contained many other things besides the order to give credit. But it was found that the original bearer might often, with advantage, transfer it to another. The letter was then disencumbered of all other matter; it was open and not sealed, and the paper on which it was written gradually shrank to the slip now in use. The assignee was, perhaps, desirous to know beforehand, whether the party, to whom it was addressed, would pay it, and sometimes showed it to him for that purpose; his promise to pay was the origin of acceptances. These letters or bills, the representatives of debts due in a foreign country, were sometimes more, sometimes less, in demand; they became, by degrees, articles of traffic; and the present complicated and abstruse practice and theory of exchange was gradually formed. Upon their introduction into our own country, other conveniences, as great as in international transactions, were found to attend them. They offered an easy and most effectual expedient for eluding the stubborn rule of the common law, that a debt is not assignable; furnishing the assignee with an assignment binding on the original creditor, capable of being ratified by the debtor, perhaps guaranteed by a series of responsible sureties, and assignable still further, ad infinitum. Not only did these simple instruments transfer value from place to place, at home or abroad, and balance the accounts of distant cities without the transmission of money; not only did they assign debts in the most. convenient, extensive and effectual manner; but the value of a debt was improved by being authenticated in a bill of exchange, for it was thus reduced to a certain amount, which the debtor, having accepted, could not afterwards unsettle; evidence of the original demand was rendered unnecessary, and the bill afforded a plainer and more indisputable title to the whole debt. A creditor, too, by assigning to a man of property a bill at a long date, given him by his debtor, could obtain, for a trifling discount, his money in advance. Credit to the buyer was thus rendered consistent with ready money to the seller, and the reconciliation of the apparent inconsistency was brought about by a further benefit to a third person, for it was effected by advantageously employing the surplus and idle funds of the capitalist. At the first introduction of bills of exchange, however, the English Courts of Law regarded them with a jealous and evil eye, allowing them only between merchants; but their obvious advantages soon compelled the Judges to sanction their use by all persons; and of late years the policy of the Bench has been industriously to remove every impediment, and add all possible facilities to these wheels of the vast commercial system. The advantages of a bill of exchange in reducing a debt to a certainty, curtailing the evidence necessary to enforce payment, and affording the means of procuring ready money by discount, often induced creditors to draw a bill for the sake of acceptance; though there might be no intention of transferring the debt. Such a transaction pointed out the way to a shorter mode of effecting the same purpose by |