ON THE LAW OF

PROMISSORY NOTES,

AND

GUARANTIES OF NOTES,

AND

CHECKS ON BANKS AND BANKERS.

WITH

OCCASIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE COMMERCIAL LAW OF THE NATIONS
OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE.

BY JOSEPH STORY, LL. D.

ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,

AND DANE PROFESSOR OF LAW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Item in his contractibus alter alteri obligatur de eo, quod alterum alteri ex bono et æquo præstare
oportet."-DIG., Lib. 44, tit. 7, 1. 2, § 3.

"Tam rigida istius obligationis persequutio est inventa, ut Mercatores tanto tutius fidem aliorum
sequi possent."— HEINECC., De Camb., cap. 5, § 1.

FOURTH EDITION.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY.

M DCCC LVI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WILLIAM W. STORY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

THE last Edition of these Commentaries was published in eighteen hundred and fifty-one. In the preparation of a new Edition, it did not come within the province of the present Editor to do more than examine and refer to the decisions published since that time. Nearly four hundred new cases have been added, and some new sections written. All the citations, new and old, have been carefully verified by actual examination. The new matter, except mere cases, are in all instances included in brackets.

BOSTON, April, 1856.

EDMUND HASTINGS BENNETT.