B I L 



404 



B 1 L 



notice, &c. ore the mo as those which have been already 

 uiuU-r tlic head of presentment (or acceptance. In 

 untry no damages are recoverable upon inland bills 

 1. the party sued being liable only for the amount 

 rest to the day on which judgment is entered up. 

 i hills duly protested the expenses occasioned by 

 ur. a* re-exchange, postage, commission, and 

 provision, may be recovered under the name of damages, 

 and amount sometimes to a considerable sum. But neither 

 in this country nor in any other can compensation be claimed 

 by the holder tor losses more remotely consequential, as the 

 ; travelling or the disappointment of some pro- 

 fitable ailventuro. 



If the holder make any agreement with the acceptor for 

 taking a composition from him, or limiting a time within 

 which he will not press for payment, all the other parties 

 to the hill, being in the situation of sureties only, are ex- 

 onerated from their liability by this dealing with the 

 principal. 



Payment should be made only to the holder of the bill ; 



ami it may be refused unless the bill be delivered up. It 



nal moreover and prudent to take a receipt written OD 



the back. If payment be made by mistake, as upon a 



forgrd acceptance, indorsement, or the like, the money so 



paid may be recovered back from the holder, provided the 



discovery has l>een made in sufficient time to allow the 



ilar notices to be given, as in case of nun-pay incut. 



The forgery of a bill of exchange or of any signature 

 thereto, as well as the uttering of any such forged bill or 

 indorsement with a knowledge of the forgery, is H felony, 

 punishable with transportation for life. 



HILL OK HEALTH. [See QUARANTINE.] 



BILL OF LADING, an acknowledgment signed usually 

 by the master of a trading ship, but occasionally by some 

 person authorised to act on his behalf, certifying the re- 

 coipt of merchandise on board the ship, and engaging, 

 under certain conditions and with certain exceptions, to 

 deliver the said merchandise safely at the port to which the 

 ship is bound, either to the shipper, or to such other person 

 as he may signify by a written assignment upon the Bill of 

 Lading. 



The conditions stipulated on behalf of the master of the 

 ship are, that the person entitled to claim the merchandise 

 shall pay upon delivery of the same a certain specified 

 amount or rate of freight, together with allowances recog- 

 nised by the customs of the port of delivery, and known 

 under the names of primage and average. Primage amounts 

 in some coses to a considerable per centage (ten or fifteen 

 per cent.) upon the amount of the stipulated freight, but 

 the more usual allowance under this head is a small fixed 

 sum upon certain packages, e. <?. the primage charged upon 

 a hogshead of sugar brought from the West Indies to Lon- 

 don is sixpence. This allowance is considered to be the 

 perquisite of the master of the ship. Average, the claim 

 for which is reserved against the receiver of the goods, con- 

 sists of a charge divided pro rata between the owners of the 

 ship and the proprietors of her cargo for small expenses 

 i as payments for towing and piloting the ship into or 

 out of harbours), when the same ore incurred for the gene- 

 ral benefit. 



The exceptions stipulated on behalf of the shipowners are 

 explained on the fare of the Bill of Lading, which instru- 

 ment is in this country usually drawn up in the following 

 words : 



' Shipped, in good order and well conditioned, by [John 

 Smith], in and upon the good ship called the [Mary], whereof 

 is master [Thomas Jones], now lying in the [River Thames], 

 and Lowid for [Hamburg] 



| II I it 100 HOI I [One Hundred bags of Coffee, and 

 j - l .1 7 t:u.u] 1 Seven Chests of Indigo], 



narked and numbered as in the margin, to be delivered in 



>od order and condition at the aforesaid port of 



Urg] (the act of God, the King* enemies, fire, and 



><er danger and accidents of the teat, rivert, 



'linn, nf whatever nature and kind soever ex- 



i unto [Messrs. Schriidcr and Co.] or their as-iLrn-, 



ig freight for tin- said goods at the following rates. 



Shilling and fourpcnce sterling per Hundred 



lit fur the Coffee, and five-eighths of a penny sterling 



i for the Indigo], together with primage and 



average accustomed. In witness whereof, I, the said master 



c' the said chip, have affirmed to [four] bills of lading, all 

 of this tenor and dote, any one of which bills being accom- 

 plished, the other [three] are to stand void. Dated in 

 London, this [first] day of [September] 1835. 



' Thomas Jones.' 



In every case where shipments are made from this 

 country, one at least of the bills of lading must be written 

 upon a stamp of the value of three chili 



One of the bills (unstamped) is retained by the master of 

 the ship, the others ore delivered to the shipper of the 

 goods, who usually transmits to the consignee of the goods 

 one copy by the snip on board which they are luden, and :\ 

 second copy by some other conveyance. In cose the ship 

 should be lost, when the goods are insured, the underwrites 

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

 Lading on the part of the person claiming under the ) 

 of insurance as evidence at once of the shipment having 

 actually been made, and of the ownership of the goods. 



Considerable hard-hip was experienced up to a late period 

 from the state of the commercial law of England as re- 

 garded pledges. A factor to whom consignments of goods 

 should be mude had full power over those goods to sell them, 

 with or without, or even against, the instructions 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 represented by it, or only entrusted with them 

 as a factor, and coses 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 cha- 

 racter 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 act G George IV. c. 94, the 

 second section of which declares ' that any person in pos- 

 session of a Bill of Lading shall be 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 bonafide 

 owner of the goods. 



The unavoidable practice of delivering more than one 

 bill of lading as an acknowledgment for the same goods 

 makes it necessary to protect the master of the v 

 against demands made for the delivery of the same 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 of the ship 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 p. 

 so first demanding the goods by the presentation of the Bill 

 of Lading. The property in the goods represented by a 

 Bill of Lading can be assigned like a bill of exchange by 

 either a blank or a special indorsement, and as, in the CM nt 

 of the first mode being used, the document might acci- 

 dentally fall into improper hands a fact which the master 

 of a ship could not reasonably be expected to discover it is 

 manifestly only justice thus to shield him from responsi- 

 bility when acting without collusion. Should he, on the 

 other hand, act either negligently or collusively in the 

 matter, the law will compel him to make good their value to 

 the real owner of the goods. 



BILL OK RIGHTS is the name commonly given to 

 the statute 1 William and Mary, sess. 2, chap. '1, in which 

 is embodied the Declaration of Rights, presented by both 

 Houses of the Convention to the Prince and Princess of 

 Orange, in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, on the l.nh 

 of February, 168'.', and accepted by their Highnesses along 

 with the crown. The Bill of Rights was originally bronchi 

 forward in 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 re- 

 jected in the Commons by the united, votes of the high 



