THE LAW OF NOTES AND BILLS. CHAPTER I. OF THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF NOTES AND BILLS. THE origin of negotiable bills of exchange is not certainly known. It has been much disputed in what ages and among what nations they arose. But the opinion, or rather the conjecture, of some writers, that they, or instruments very like them, were known among the Romans and Grecians, has been shown to be without foundation. It is, however, certain, that such a transaction as a request by A in Rome that B in Alexandria should pay to C, on A's account, the money which B owes A, must have been not uncommon; for if there was commerce, there was foreign indebtedness, and it must sometimes have happened that in this way a foreign debt could be paid with equal convenience to debtor and creditor. Indeed, both Cicero (a) and Isocrates (b) refer to such cases. of the principles of the civil law in relation to novation, delegation, and subrogation are quite analogous to those which now constitute the law of negotiable paper; and for this reason it may seem more strange that nations possessing so much commerce and civilization as Greece and Rome, did not go so far Moreover, many Bills as to invent and use negotiable paper. But they did not. of exchange which at first were not, so far as our evidence extends, negotiable, were in use in Venice in 1272, for a law of that date refers to them. There are traces of them a little earer and the different theories which ascribe their origin— always on some, but never on certain ovidence to the Jews when oppressively expelled from their homes, to the Lombards when driven from one country to another for usury, or to the Guelphic Florentines when exiled from Italy by the Ghibellines, all concur in proving that they were in use among the commercial nations of Europe, and especially along the shores of the Mediterranean, about five centuries ago, and that they were then of recent introduction.(c) (c) Mr. Reddie, in his Historical View of the Law of Maritime Commerce, examines this question with his accustomed thoroughness and ability, and concludes that bills of exchange were first used by the Campsores or money-lenders at the fairs of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. He remarks as follows: "Along with the dealers in other merchandise, the money-dealer repaired with his commodity to the stated fairs established over Europe; and, as his commodity was in constant and universal demand, he became a person of consequence at the fair. As his money-table was necessary for the accommodation of all the other dealers, he had a peculiar claim to the protection of the government under whose authority the fair was held. Like the other merchants who disposed of their goods, he was equally if not more entitled to obtain a document of the debt contracted to him, under the seal of the fair, and clothed with all the privileges enjoyed by the creditor under its peculiar jurisdiction. For the money so advanced by him, it generally suited the merchant whom he accommodated to give or transfer to the money-dealer some of these documents of debt which he had received from other merchants for the goods he had brought to and sold at the fair. To the money-dealer this was also desirable, as affording a double security for the money he advanced and the credit he gave; and the document of debt thus transferred, for a certain sum advanced in cash by a money-dealer at a fair, specifying a particular p, j-day at a subsequent fair, to be kept either in the same or in a distant town, and under the peculiar jurisdiction of the fair, containing a warrant for arresting the person of the debtor who should fail in making payment, combines all the essentials, and obviously presents the model, of our modern bill of exchange. The precise era of that most useful invention does not appear to have been exactly ascertained; but that it originated, in the manner we have just seen, in the usages and customs observed and in the regulations adopted at fairs, from considerations of general security and convenience, there is every reason to believe. And after it was once established upon a small scale, the utility and convenience of the invention behooved gradually to lead to its more extensive adoption, particularly in foreign and maritime commerce. Indeed, it seems probable that bills of exchange, such, or nearly such, as we have at present, first came into general use in the course of the extended commerce carried on by the maritime cities of Italy, and of the south of France and Spain, under their comparatively free and well-administered governments. Weber, in his Ricerche sull' Originee sulla Natura del Contratto di Cambio, published at Venice in 1810 states positively that |