( COMMERCIAL LAW. 



lection imiler the tille of R/totlian Lawn, published ut 

 liasle in 1561, and at Frankfurt in 1596, being gen- 

 t-rally considered as spurious. This title and that De 

 Nautico Fanore recognize the first broad principles on 

 the subjects of jettison and maritime law. The law 

 de exercitoria actione, in tlie Digest, also transmits to 

 us their principles as to the liability of the owners for 

 the acts awl contracts of the master of a vessel. The 

 remaining rules and principles by which the commer- 

 cial transactions of the ancients, in the Mediterranean, 

 were governed, liave, for the most part, passed into 

 oblivion. The reason of so small a space being as- 

 signed to this branch of jurisprudence, in the Koinan 

 laws, may be the low estimation in which trade was 

 held by the Romans, who prohibited men of birth 

 iiiul rank from engaging in commerce, of which the 

 code (-1. G3. 3.) speaks contemptuously; and Cicero 

 i was not fitting that the same people should be 

 both the porters and the masters of the world. The 

 (I reeks, being the merchants and navigators of the 

 ancients, adopted the llhodian laws, with modifica- 

 tions. The Athenian law, on the subject of maritime 

 loans, is stated particularly in Boeckh's Economy of 

 Athens, b. 1, sec. 23, from which it appears that the 

 rules on this subject were very definitely settled. 

 The laws of trade naturally followed the trade which 

 they were designed to regulate. Accordingly, we 

 find them first revived in the middle ages, on the 

 shores of the same sea, in one of the islands of which 

 they liad their origin ; a collection of them being made 

 at Amalfi, a city within the limits of the present 

 kingdom of Naples, about the time of the first cru- 

 sade, towards the close of the eleventh century, cal- 

 led the Amalfitan Table, the authority of which was 

 acknowledged throughout Italy. 



The origin of the compilation of sea laws, which 

 passes under the title of Consolato del Mare, though 

 involved in some obscurity, is most generally assign- 

 ed to the city of Barcelona, in Spain. Some writers, 

 however, and particularly Azuni, claim the honour 

 of this collection also for Italy. But Casaregis, a 

 profound commercial jurist, who published an edition 

 of it, in Italian, at Venice, in 1737. and M. Boucher, 

 who published a Frencli translation in 1808, from 

 what he considers the original edition of Barcelona 

 of 1494, both admit the Spanish claim. These laws 

 are supposed by M. Boucher to have been adopted 

 and in use as early as the ninth century, and their au- 

 thority was acknowledged in all the maritime coun- 

 tries of Europe, and some of the articles of this col- 

 lection form a part of the present commercial law of 

 all civilized nations. It lias been translated into Ger- 

 man, also, but no entire English translation has yet 

 been made. It is an ill-arranged, confused compila- 

 tion ; and, though it is interesting as an historical re- 

 cord of the marine laws and customs of the middle 

 ages, a large proportion of its provisions do not ap- 

 ply to the modes of transacting business and making 

 contracts in modern times. The Jugemens d'Oleron 

 (or Laws of Oleron) are supposed to have been com- 

 piled about the time of Richard I. ; and the honour 

 of this collection, like that of the Consolato, from 

 which it is partly borrowed, is in dispute, being 

 claimed for the French by Valin, Emerigon, and 

 Cleriac, who say it was made by order of queen 

 Eleanor, duchess of Guienne, for die use of that pro- 

 vince, and adopted by her son Richard I., duke of 

 Guienne. But Selden, Coke, and Blackstone assert 

 tliat it is an English work, published by Richard I., 

 in his character of king of England. The maritime 

 codes of Wisbuy and the Hanse towns are also of 

 historical celebrity, and constitute a part of the legal 

 antiquities of this branch of jurisprudence. These 

 were the principal marine codes down to 1 673, the 

 date of the French ordinance of commerce, which 



treated largely of bills of exclumec, and negotiable 

 paper. In KS81 was published, also, the French Or- 

 dinance of Marine, one of the most glorious monu- 

 ments of the reign of Louis XIV. It was framed 

 under the influence of Colbert, and merits all its < e- 

 lebrity, being comprehensive, and including provi- 

 sions, not only on many of the subjects of comnn r- 

 cial law, as we have denned its limits, but, also, ver > 

 ample regulations on the subject of prizes. '1 IICM: 

 ordinances are the foundation of the present system 

 of marine law in Europe and America. Valin's coin- 

 menlary upon the Ordinance of the Marine, publish- 

 ed in 1760, is a profound, original, comprehensive, 

 learned, and accurate work. In 17(53, he also pub- 

 lished his commentaries on the provisions of the ordi- 

 nance in relation to prizes. About twenty years 

 afterwards (1782), Emerigon published his masterly 

 treatise on insurance. The two ordinances, with the, 

 commentary of Valin, and the treatise of Emerigon 

 made the commercial law a science, of which the 

 principles were now settled, and their application 

 also traced out into a great number of examples. It 

 was now in the power of jurists, judges, and legisla- 

 tors to make every new question andcase that should 

 arise only a confirmation and extension, in application, 

 of doctrines which had been established upon conclu- 

 sive reasons, and made parts of a harmonious system ; 

 and all the commercial nations have adopted the sys- 

 tem thus formed. It constitutes the present French 

 code of commerce, and appears everywhere in the Bri- 

 tish, American . and continental treatises and decisions. 

 The other French writers of greatest celebrity, on 

 tins branch of law, are Pothier, Cleirac, and Boucher. 

 M. Jacobsen, a jurisconsult of Altona, has published 

 a useful work on the subject of sea laws. The ear- 

 lier English writers on commercial law were Malynes 

 (a merchant), Molloy (a lawyer), Beawes (a mer- 

 chant), Postlethwaite, Magens (a dispacheur, or ad- 

 juster of marine losses, originally of Hamburg, after- 

 wards of London) and Wiskett (a merchant). But 

 the marine law cannot be considered as having be- 

 come a branch of the general science of jurisprudence 

 in Britain, until the time of lord Mansfield, who 

 appears to have had some considerable acquaintance 

 with the treatise of Valin, from which he drew priii- 

 ciples and reasons, and incorporated them into the 

 reluctant common law. By degrees, during li is judi- 

 cial career, this branch of jurisprudence gained popu- 

 larity, and, from that time, has occupied an impor- 

 tant part of the British legal administration, though 

 very few legislative enactments have either disturbed 

 or promoted its progress. Though the maritime law 

 in this country continued in a very rude and undigest- 

 ed state, long after it was arranged into an admirable 

 system in France, yet the assiduity with which it has 

 been cultivated since its introduction, and the splen- 

 did talents which have been brought to its illustra- 

 tion, have contributed to advance it with a rapid pro- 

 gress. Among the ornaments of this branch of law, 

 we ought particularly to mention lord Stowell, judge 

 of the British high court of admiralty. The latfc 

 chief-justice of the court of king's bench, lord Ten- 

 terden, by his learned and well-arranged treatise on 

 merchant shipping, contributed very materially to 

 the present advanced state of British commercial ju- 

 risprudence. The other principal writers on this 

 law, are Millar, Park, Marshall, Bayley, Chitty, 

 Lawes, Holt, and Benecke. Nor have the Ameri 

 cans been idle spectators of this improvement 

 in a branch of law in which their industry and 

 prosperity are so deeply interested. Though they 

 liave supplied but few original systematic trea- 

 tises and digests, yet, in the numerous, important, 

 and interesting questions that have been brought 

 Tinder discussion before the legal tribunals, the it- 



