838 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



and contracts for carriage or storage, they became negotiable 

 instruments whose delivery when properly indorsed constituted 

 delivery of title. 



The formative periods in the legal history of the bill of lading 

 in England are the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The bill 

 became common and acquired its general form in the course of 

 the sixteenth century ; the legal doctrine of negotiability was not 

 fully developed until the latter part of the eighteenth century. 

 From these general facts one is tempted to lay down the general 

 proposition that the bill as a receipt for goods and contract of 

 affreightment became definitely settled in the early period, but 

 did not become a symbol of title negotiable by indorsement until 

 the eighteenth century. This conception of the development 

 of the bill should probably be qualified, as the sale of floating 

 cargoes and transfer of title by indorsement of bills certainly 

 occurred in fact long before it was solidly established in legal 

 doctrine. A number of bills of lading are published in the 

 " Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty." The form of the in- 

 strument is evidently unsettled in a number of respects, and a 

 real development is evident. The documents suggest in every 

 respect the origin of the instrument and seem to be merely re- 

 ceipts for goods and contracts of affreightment, but this narrower 

 view of the bill is invalidated by the editor's heading with refer- 

 ence to the bill of November 7, 1539. The bill was drawn for 

 a consignment of iron from Bilbao to London. The iron was 

 sold while afloat, the bill of lading was indorsed to the buyer, 

 and the goods were delivered to him. A decision of Savary, the 

 noted French authority on commercial law in the late seventeenth 

 century, would also suggest that actual use of bills of lading was 

 not limited by acknowledged doctrine. Savary says : " It is 

 asked if a bill of lading should be deemed valid if it merely 

 states what merchandise has been received by the master of the 

 vessel without mention of the consignee. It is absolutely essential 

 that the bill contain the name of the consignee, otherwise it is 

 a fraud." With the rise of speculative trade it was the practice 

 to draw bills in blank with the intention of filling in the name 

 of the consignee when the goods had been sold ; thus it becomes 



