145 



BILL OF RIGHTS. 



BILL OF SALE. 



148 





case the ship should be lost, when the goods are insured, the under- 

 writers require the production of one of the copies of the Bill of 

 Lading, on the part of the person claiming under the policy of insvirance 

 as evidence at once of the shipment having actually been made, and of 

 the ownership of the goods. 



Considerable hardship was experienced up to a late period from the 

 state of the commercial law of England as regarded pledges. A factor 

 to whom consignments of goods should be made had full power over 

 those goods to sell them, with or without, or even against, the instruc- 

 tions of the owner, but he had no right to pledge them, and if he did 

 so the owner of the goods might insist upon their restitution from the 

 pawnee without repaying the advances he might have made. It was 

 impossible to know from the terms of the document whether the 

 holder of a Bill of Lading was actually the owner of the goods repre- 

 sented by it, or only entrusted with them as a factor, and cases of great 

 hardship frequently occurred, sometimes indeed not without suspicion 

 of collusion between the owner and the factor. This law was defective, 

 because it visited upon a third party the carelessness or error of the 

 owner of the goods in making a false estimate of the character of the 

 factor whom he employed, and because, on the other hand, it 

 frequently compelled factors to sell goods at an unfavourable moment, 

 the necessity for which course might have been averted, if they 

 could legally have given the goods in security for an advance of 

 money. This state of things was remedied by the statute 6 Geo. IV. 

 '. !'l, usually called "the Factor's Act," which was subsequently 

 amended by stat. 5 & 6 Viet. c. 39. Any person in possession of a 

 Bill of Lading is now deemed the true owner of the goods specified 

 in it, so as to make a sale or pledge by him of such goods or bill of 

 lading valid, unless the person to whom the goods are sold or 

 pledged has notice that the seller or pledger is not the actual and bond 

 fidt owner of the goods. 



The unavoidable practice of delivering more than one bill of lading 

 an an acknowledgment for the same goods (of the shipment of which 

 the bill of lading is as against the master conclusive evidence), makes 

 it necessary to protect the master against demands made for the 

 delivery of the goods in the possible case of different copies of the Bill 

 of Lading falling into the possession of different persons. In such case 

 all that is required from the master is, that he, acting in perfect good 

 faith, and without any reasonable suspicion of fraud on the part of the 

 person first making the demand for delivery, shall comply with the 

 same to the person so first demanding the goods by the presentation of 

 the Bill of Lading. The property in the goods represented by a Bill 

 of Lading, and all the rights and liabilities of the parties thereto, inter 

 M (18 & 19 Viet. c. Ill), can be assigned like a bill of exchange by 

 indorsement, which may be either in blank or special. In the event 

 of the first mode being used, as the document might accidentally fall 

 into improper hands a fact which the master of a ship could not 

 reasonably be expected to discover he is free from responsibility 

 when acting without collusion. Should he, on the other hand, act 

 either negligently or collusively hi the matter, the law will compel 

 him to make good their value to the real owner of the goods. 



BILL OF RIGHTS is the name commonly given to the statute 

 1 William and Mary, sess.. 2, chap. 2, in which is embodied the De- 

 claration of Rights, presented by both Houses of the Convention to the 

 Prince and Princess of Orange, in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, 

 on the 13th of February, 1689, and accepted by their highnesses along 

 with the crown. The Bill of Rights was originally brought forward hi 

 the first session of the parliament into which the Convention was 

 transformed ; but a dispute between the two Houses with regard to an 

 amendment introduced into the bill by the Lords, naming the Princess 

 Sophia of Hanover and her posterity next in succession to the crown 

 after the failure of issue to King William, which was rejected in the 

 Commons by the united votes of the high church and the republican 

 parties, occasioned the measure to be dropped, after it had been in 

 dependence for two months, and the matter of difference had been 

 agitated in several conferences without effect. The bill was however 

 again brought in immediately after the opening of the next session, on 

 the 19th of October, 1689, and the amendment respecting the Princess 

 Sophia not having been again proposed, it passed both houses, and 

 received the royal assent in the same shape in which it had formerly 

 passed the Commons, with the addition only of a clause inserted by the 

 Lords, enacting that the kings and queens of England should be 

 obliged, at their coming to the crown, to take the test in the first 

 parliament that should be called at the beginning of their reign, and 

 that if any king or queen of England should embrace the Roman 

 Catholic religion, or marry with a Roman Catholic prince or princess, 

 their subjects should be absolved of their allegiance. This remark- 

 able clause is stated to have been agreed to without any opposition or 

 debate. 



The Bill of Righto, after declaring the late King James II. to have 

 done various acts, which are enumerated, utterly and directly contrary 

 to the known laws and statutes and freedom of this realm, and to 

 have abdicated the government, proceeds to enact as follows : 



" 1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execu- 

 tion <>f lawn, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is 

 illegal. 2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the 

 execution of laws, by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and 

 i-d of late, is illegal. 3. That the commission for creating the 

 ARTS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. II. 



.ate court of commissioners for ecclesiastical causes, and all other 

 commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and pernicious. 

 4. That levying of money for or to the use of the crown, by pretence 

 of prerogative, without grant of parliament, for longer time, or in other 

 manner, than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal. 5. That it is 

 the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and 

 prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. 6. That the raising or 

 seeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless 

 it be with consent of parliament, is against law. 7. That the subjects, 

 which are protestants, may have arms for their defence, suitable to 

 their condition, and as allowed by law. 8. That election of members 

 of parliament ought to be free. 9. That the freedom of speech, and 

 debates or proceedings in parliament, ought not to be impeached or 

 questioned in any court or place out of parliament. 10. That excessive 

 bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel 

 and unusual punishments inflicted. 11. That jurors ought to be duly 

 empanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials 

 for high treason ought to be freeholders. 12. That all grants and 

 promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons, before conviction, 

 are illegal and void. 13. And that for redress of all grievances, and 

 for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, parliaments 

 ought to be held frequently." 



It is added that the Lords and Commons " do claim, demand, and 

 insist upon all and singular the premises as their undoubted rights and 

 liberties ; and that no declarations, judgments, doings, or proceedings, 

 to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premises, ought in 

 anywise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example." 



The act also recognises their Majesties William III. and Mary as 

 King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions 

 thereunto belonging ; and declares that the crown and royal dignity of 

 the said kingdoms and dominions shall be held by their said majesties 

 during their lives and the life of the survivor of them ; that the sole 

 and full exercise of the regal power shall be only in and executed by 

 King William, in the names of himself and her majesty, during their 

 joint lives ; and that after their decease the crown shall descend to the 

 heirs of the body of the queen, and, in default of such issue, to the 

 Princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body, and, failing her 

 issue, to the heirs of the body of the king. 



The Declaration of Rights is understood to have been principally the 

 composition of Lord (then Mr.) Somers, who was a member of the first, 

 and chairman of the second, of two committees, on whose reports it 

 was founded. The original draught of the Bill of Rights was also 

 probably the production of his pen. In the latter especially, there is 

 very apparent a desire to preserve in the new arrangement as much as 

 possible of the principle of hereditary succession to the crown. The 

 legislature, for instance, in strong terms expresses its thankfulness that 

 God had mercifully preserved King William and Queen Mary to reign 

 over them " upon the throne of their ancestors ; " and the new settle- 

 ment is cautiously designated merely "a limitation of the crown." 

 Mr. Burke has, from these expressions, contended (in his ' Reflections 

 on the Revolution in France ') that the notion of the English people 

 having at the Revolution asserted a right to elect their kings is alto- 

 gether unfounded. " I never desire," he adds, in repudiation of the 

 opposite opinion as held by one class of persons professing Whig prin- 

 ciples, " to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to under- 

 stand the principles of the Revolution better than those by whom it 

 was brought about, or to read in the Declaration of Rights any mysteries 

 unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordi- 

 nances and in our hearts the words and spirit of that immortal law." 



It has been sometimes stated, even so lately as by Lord Macaulay in 

 his ' History ' (as is pointed out by Mr. Knight in his ' Popular History 

 of England '), that this act " deprived the crown of the power of 

 arbitrarily removing the judges ; " but neither the act, nor the Decla- 

 ration of Rights which preceded it r contains a word on the subject. It 

 was effected, however, by the Act of Settlement (13 Wm. III. c. 2), 

 in 1701. Equally erroneous has been the assigning of this measure to 

 the 1 George III. c. 2, which has been even more generally done. This 

 act merely provided that the judges should not be removeable on the 

 accession of a new sovereign. 



The Declaration and Bill of Rights may be compared with the 

 Petition of Rights (drawn up by Sir Edward Coke), which was pre- 

 sented by parliament to Charles I. in 1628, and passed by him into a 

 law. [PETITION OF RIGHT.] 



BILL OF SALE, a deed or writing under seal, evidencing the sale 

 of personal property. In general, the transfer of possession is the best 

 evidence of ownership, but cases frequently occur in which it is 

 necessary or desirable that the change of property should be attested 

 by a formal instrument of transfer ; and in all cases in which it is not 

 intended that the sale shall be followed by delivery, such a solemnity 

 is essential to the legal efficacy of the agreement. The occasions to 

 which these instruments are commonly made applicable are sales of 

 fixtures and furniture in a house, of the stock of a shop, of the goodwill 

 of a business (which of course is not transferable by delivery), of an 

 office, or the like. But their most important use is in the transfer of 

 property in ships, which being held in shares cannot, in general, bo 

 delivered over on each change of part ownership. It seems to have 

 been from ancient times the practice, as well in this country as in 

 other commercial states, to attest the sale of ships by a written 



