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memlered that lli necessary expense of earn ins the gene- 

 r.i!ii\ nl" such lulls through parliament must always be very 

 considerable, to long as the present s< ruritie- 

 cipitate and unfair legislation shall be iii*i*ied <m. Tlio 

 expense* of agency, of bringing up witnesses, an<l the other 

 expense* attending this making application t.i parliament 

 for private bill, at present often amount to iimny time* as 

 much as the fees. These fees, on the other hand, are con- 

 il to be some check upon unnecessary applications for 

 private Mils, with which it is contended that parliament 

 would otherwise be inundated. The misfortune is, that it 

 is not the most unnecessary applications which such a check 

 really tend* to prevent, but only the applications of parlies 

 who are pour, which may be just as proper to be attended 

 to as those of the rich. 



BILL OK EXCHANGE, a well-known mercantile in- 

 strument, of great and extensive usefulness, which may be 

 described as a written order or request addressed by one 

 person to another, directing the latter to pay on account of 

 the former to some third person or his order, or to tho order 

 of the person addressing the request, a certain sum of money 

 at a time therein specified. In commercial language, the 

 person giving the direction is called the drawer of the bill, 

 he to whom it is addressed the drawee, and he in whose 

 favour it is given the payee or occasionally the remitter. 

 Bills of exchange are ordinarily divided into two classes, 

 foreign and inland ; tho former comprehend such as are 

 drawn or arc payable abroad, the latter those which are drawn 

 :// payable in England. Thus, a bill drawn in France, or 

 even in Scotland or Ireland, upon a party in England, or 

 conversely, is a foreign bill; and this, it is to be observed, 

 is a distinction not merely nominal, but carrying with it 

 important legal consequences. 



At what time and by what people bills of exchange 

 were first brought into use is a matter of history which has 

 not been satisfactorily ascertained. The invention has been 

 variously assigned to the Jews and Lombards, as a mode 

 of secretly withdrawing their effects from France and Eng- 

 land, whence in the thirteenth century they were banished 

 for usury to the Florentines Hying from the sue 

 faction of the Ghibellines and to the Mongolian conquerors 

 of China. These, however, one and all, are conjectures 

 resting on no solid foundation. All that can be safely 

 affirmed is, that instruments of this kind were current among 

 the commercial states of Italy in the early part of the four- 

 teenth century, and that it is probable they were not un- 

 known at the close of the game century in England. It has 

 been commonly stated that the use of foreign bills preceded 

 that of inland, and the statement, when confined to Eng- 

 land, into which the practice was imported from other coun- 

 tries, is unquestionably true ; but there seems no reason for 

 supposing that in the original application of the invention 

 any such distinction existed at all. The object to he attained 

 was tho facilitation of exchanges between parties resident 

 at a distance from each other, by dispensing with the remit- 

 tance of money in specie: and whether the parties were 

 resident in different countries or in the same, the incon- 

 venience would equally exist, and the remedy be equally 

 applicable. 



The history of bills of exchange would furnish much 

 curious and instructive matter, as illustrative of the pi 

 of trade, from the simple and somewhat clumsy operations 

 of earlv times down to the refined and complicated systvm 

 of modem exchanges. Originally, as has been said," they 

 were employed solely as media of remittance, and the exi- 

 gency which brought them into use may be explained as 

 s: A., at Hamburg, consigned goods to B., in London, 

 cither in execution of an order, or as his factor for sale. 

 B., thereupon, being debtor to A. for the invoice amount, or 

 the proceeds of the sale, as the case might be, was desirous 

 of remitting to A. accordingly. The remittance could only 

 be made in money or in goods ; but A. might not want a 

 return cargo of English commodities, and the sending out 

 of specie was both inconvenient and hazardous. For, first, 



was to lie procured at the money-ch;n 

 a ship was to lie found to carry it ; then it was to ! 

 safely deposited on board ; an insurance was to 

 and advice* sent out by another vessel to A. If th 

 arrhi re was the unloading, carriage, ntul delivery 



on the other sidu : if it were wrecked or capture.!, there was 

 the entire loss, when uninsured, and tho trouble of procuring 

 payment when insured. Now suppose (to take the simplest 

 case) that some third person, C., were about to take his 



departure from Hamburg to London, mutual accommoda- 

 tion would suggest the following arrangement : A. would 

 deliver to I', an ojien letter addressed to B., requesting him 

 M('. the amount intended t<> be remitted ; and C., on 

 receiving the letter into his possession, would pay directly to 

 A. the \aluc of it in money current at I Limbing, and 

 having carried it over to London would there receive t'rum B. 

 the sum specified. By this simple contrivance much of the 

 expense, and all the risk and trouble of remittance would be 

 saved to B.or A. ; and C., besides having a more convenient 

 and portable sign of wealth, would probably receive a /*>*ut, 

 tli.it i>. some advantage for the accommodation. Ii 

 however, that t . bring the machinery into opera I 

 things would be wanting : such as, first, the know led) 

 the two parties of the mutual want ; secondly, 

 on the part of C. that the money would be paid by B. on 

 presentment of the letter of request, or that in default of 

 payment by him he might safely look for reimbursement 

 to A.; and, thirdly, the assessment of the present value ot 

 tho letter, or, in other wonls. the determining how much 

 C. ought to give A. in ready money ot Hamburg for the 

 sum specified in the letter, to be paid at a future day in 

 money of England. Now one branch of this last requisite, 

 the adjustment of the comparative value of different 

 currencies, fell directly wkhin tho province of the money - 

 dealers, who, from their stalls or banquet at the great lairs 

 and marts of exchange, recem-d the name of itanquiert 

 (bankers), and as all persons about to remit or to proceed to 

 foreign countries resorted to them for the requisite coin, 

 they would be enabled to furnish the merchants with in- 

 formation as to the other particulars also, and would thus 

 naturally become the negotiators of this sort of exchai 



But the transactions by way of letters of exchange would 

 have been very limited, had they depended on the occasional 

 coincidence of a party setting out in person to the country 

 to which tho remittance was to bo made. There were, 

 however, other cases in which the like operation might hu 

 made available ; for although A. might not want good* from 

 England in return for those shipped by him from Hamburg, 

 other Hamburg merchants might, and so it might happen 

 that at the very time of the intended remittance B. had 

 money owing to him at Hamburg in respect of good* so 

 shipped. Let it be supposed then that C., instead of setting 

 out in person to London, were about to remit money to B., 

 it is obvious that in that case tho whole or a portion, as well 

 of B.'s debt to A. as of C.'s debt to B., might be extinguished 

 by a simple arrangement of the same kind as that before 

 described. 15. would write a letter addressed to C., re- 

 questing him to pay a specified sum to A., or, in mur 

 cantile phrase, would draw upon C. in favour of A. ; this 

 letter or draft he would remit, as payment, to A., who upon 

 presentment to C. would receive from him the amount, and 

 would give credit to B. in account accordingly. 



To advance a step further, B. might not at the moment 

 have any debtor at Hamburg through whom the substi- 

 tution could be made ; but as the trade between two coun- 

 tries is never, unless under unnatural circumstances, en- 

 tirely unilateral consisting, that is to say, solely of ship- 

 ments of goods on the one part, and solely of remittances of 

 money on the other it would happen that if B. had not, 

 other London merchants would have, sums of money owing 

 from Hamburg. When therefore the conveiuc 

 method of exchanges had been felt, it was natural that B., 

 when desirous of remitting, should endeavour to find out 

 some person so circumstanced, from whom he might procure 

 an order upon his debtor ; in other words, that he should buy 

 a bill on Hamburg for remittance to A. For the reasons 

 before mentioned, recourse would he had for this purpose to 

 the money-dealers ; and it is not difficult to conceive by w hat 

 steps tho business of procuring and supplying bills soon be- 

 came in their hands a distinct and important branch of trade. 



Nor, indeed, without the intervention of such dealers, 

 could the system over have become extensively useful ; be- 

 cause although it is true, as has been - r,.l, that in the com- 

 mercial intercourse of two countries it seldom happens that 

 either is merely buyer or merely seller, it is equally iw 

 ie \alue of the commodities exchanged is exactly 

 balanced. There would r,'ii-"quently be at tunes a scarcity 

 of bills upon one country and an excess of those upon some 

 other. But as the system gradually matured itself, the 

 dealers through whom the exchanges were effected, would 

 find their advantage in adjusting the demand and supply by 

 sending or procuring the superfluous bills in one mar'r'et tc 



