Middlemen in English Business 391 



an aid to the conduct of business. Relief was given to bills of ex- 

 change in 1698, when the law defined a way for protesting bills. ^ In 

 1704 promissory notes were made assignable by indorsement and 

 gi\-en the same legal standing as bills of exchange. The old question, 

 whether bills of exchange and promissory notes were assignable or 

 indorsable over, within the custom of merchants, to any other person, 

 or whether the person to whom a bill or note was payable, or to whom 

 such bill or note was assigned could maintain an action against the 

 person who first made or assigned it, was definitely determined in the 

 affirmative. This legislation was of infinite value to the rising com- 

 merce of the eighteenth century. 



Another financial means which served the merchant's needs in the 

 line of credit and security was marine insurance. A statute, the first 

 bearing upon the subject of insurance, dated 1601, declared in its 

 enacting clause that the insurance of ships and cargoes had "been 

 Time out of Mind an Usage amongst Merchants, both of this Realm 

 and of foreign Nations."'- This act established a court "for the hear- 

 inge and determynynge of causes arisinge from policies of assurance." 

 The court was a failure from defects in its composition.^ The 1601 

 statute mentions an "Office of Assurances \\ithin the City of London" 

 in which the business seems to have been concentrated and poHcies 

 of insurance registered. Brokers of insurance existed at this date, 

 "concerned ... in the Writing of Insurances and Policies" and 

 having "Dwellings near the Exchange." The institution of coffee- 

 houses was a great convenience to underwriters; "Hains," "Garra- 

 way," "Thomas Good" and "Lloyd's" were particularly used 

 by the mercantile classes; although the "Insurance Office" at the 

 Royal Exchange remained the headquarters until the eighteenth 

 century. 



The seventeenth century Avitnessed the specialization of a class of 

 underwriters who made insurance their sole business. Heretofore 

 marine insurance was done as a part of the general mercantile and 

 financial business of merchants or goldsmiths. The merchants did a 

 sort of mutual insurance of each other's ships and felt an obligation 

 "in honor" as a "generous Merchant" to assist "Ensuring of others, 

 . . . the Premio running reasonable."' .Some merchants continued 



^ The act was strengthened by .^-4 Anne, Cap. 4, with respect to non-accepted 

 bills. 



- 43 Eliz., Cap. 12. 



=5 L3-14 Chas. II, Cap. 23, Sec. 1. 



" Molloy, De Jure, 297. 



