Cadwalader.] ^O [March 19, 



house took no bills wliicli they did not, on sufficient grounds, believe to 

 have been drav^n upon shipments^ or intended shipments, of adequate value. 

 His house were mere buyers in the exchange market. They did not them- 

 selves take, or directly control, any security except the personal responsi- 

 bility of the dravs^ers of the bills. But this was not the security on which 

 they relied. Believing that the business in which every bill had been 

 drawn was legitimate, they had no doubt that the bill would be accepted 

 abroad, upon the credit of shipments which had been, or would be fully 

 insured against capture. 



Capricious vacillation marked the belligerent conduct of the British 

 Government in the occasional suspension and renewal of ill. judged retali- 

 atory measures affecting neutrals. A sudden commercial crisis, from one 

 of the most ill-timed of these vacillations, caused, in 1810, an unprece- 

 dented depression of the values of a large stock of British imports in the 

 United States. The heaviest losers were Guest and Bancker. The part- 

 nership was dissolved. He retired from it, without retaining any property, 

 but was not indebted to any one. 



During the interval which preceded the war of 1812, he visited Eng- 

 land on business of Stephen Girarcl, then the wealthiest merchant of 

 the United States, with results of extraordinary profit for Mr. Girard, and 

 of corresponding advantage to himself. He soon resumed commercial 

 business on his own account, and continued it variously for several years. 

 At one time, he dealt largely in cotton, including the product of the re- 

 motest parts of our country in which it was grown. »His practical exj)eri- 

 ence in almost all subjects of internal and external trade, was of the most 

 extended range. 



He was not engaged in commerce after 1826. It then became neces- 

 sary for him to seek other employment ; and his attention was turned to 

 insurance. 



The science of insurance — for it is a science — cannot be sufficiently 

 taught by professors of la,w, nor fully understood by mere merchants, nor 

 very deeply fathomed by mere mathematicians. Insurance, we may be 

 told, is a substitute for capital, and should enable men without capital to 

 engage securely, on borrowed means, in enteri)rises otherwise unduly 

 hazardous ; and, therefore, that where insurance has been made, and the 

 premium paid, anything which may tend: to prevent fair indemnification 

 against loss, ought in law to be deemed a breach of contract, and must 

 in ethics be a subterfuge and fraud. On the other hand, we may be told 

 that the contract is one of indemnity against a risk of which the subject 

 is always beyond the insurer's reach or control, and is at the exclusive 

 charge and disposal of the insured ; that the insurer is therefore entitled 

 always to expect a rigid application of the piirest principles of ethics for 

 the protection of his interests, and that no public interest would be pro- 

 moted by excusing a careless disregard of his rights. Each proposition, 

 when correctly understood, may, with certain applications, be true. But 

 neither proposition is of much practical use. In the absence of fraud. 



