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Shower's Reports, House of Lords. ..Smale and Giffard's Reports, Vice-Chancellor's. .. Starkie's Reports, Nisi Prius. .. Strange's Reports, English. ..London Times Law Reports. ..Term Reports, Durnford and East, K. B ..Taunton's Reports, Common Pleas. ..Taylor on Evidence, 8th ed., 1884. ..Tennessee Reports. .. Thomson's Reports, Nova Scotia . Weekly Notes, Law Reports, 1866-92. .. Wallace's Reports, United States Supreme Court. . Wendell's Reports, N, Y. INTRODUCTION. The origin of Bills and Notes was formerly a vexed question among legal antiquarians. On the one hand it was claimed that they were known to the ancient Romans and Jews, while on the other hand they were assigned to a very recent date. It is now conceded, however, that the letter or order on Athens in favor of his son of which Cicero speaks in one of his letters had little in common with a modern Bill of Exchange; and that the writing or note of hand for ten talents mentioned in the book of Tobit was not the parent of the modern Promissory Note, but a mere acknowledgnent of debt. Promissory Notes are no doubt the older instruments; but they only acquired their negotiable character long after that of Bills of Exchange had been firmly established as a part of the law merchant. The process of evolution by which these and the other instruments which are now recognized as negotiable acquired that right under the law merchant has probably been no where better described than in the judgment of the late Chief Justice Cockburn in the case of Goodwin v. Robarts reported in the Law Reports, 10 Exchequer. This was a case in which the negotiability of certain Russian and Austrian bonds was in issue. The Chief Justice took occasion to correct the idea that the law merchant was a fixed or stereotyped body of law, forming part of the ancient common law or coeval with it. He claimed that it was of comparatively recent origin and was simply the usages and customs of merchants in the different departments of trade, ratified by the decisions of courts of law upon proof of their existence in the marts of commerce. He there quotes with approval the remark of Lord Campbell, that "when a general usage has been judicially ascertained and established, it becomes a part of the law merchant, which Courts of Justice are bound to know and recognize." He then proceeds, at page 346, to trace the history of the development of the law merchant as regards the different classes of negotiable instruments as follows: "Bills of Exchange are known to be of comparatively modern origin, having been first brought into use, so far as is at present known, by the Florentines in the twelfth, and by the Venetians about the thirteenth century. The use of them gradually found its way into France, and, still later and but slowly, into England. We find it stated in a law tract, by Mr. Macleod, entitled "Specimen of a Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange," printed, we believe, as a report to the government, but which, from its research and ability, deserves to be produced in a form calculated to insure a wider circulation, that Richard Malynes, a London merchant, who published a work called the Lex Mercatoria, in 1622, and who gives a full account of these bills as used by the merchants of Amsterdam, Hamburg, and other places, expressly states that such bills were not used in England. There is reason to think, however, that this is a mistake. Mr. Macleod shews that promissory notes, payable to bearer, or to a man and his assigns, were known in the time of Edward IV. Indeed, as early as the statute of 3 Rich. 2, c. 3, bills of exchange are referred to as a means of conveying money out of the realm, though not as a process in use among English merchants. But the fact that a London merchant writing expressly on the law merchant was unaware of the use of bills of exchange in this country, shews that that use at the time he wrote. must have been limited. According to Professor Story, who herein is, no doubt, perfectly right, "the introduction and use of bills of exchange in England," as indeed it was everywhere else, "seems to have been founded on the mere practice of merchants, and gradually to have acquired the force of a custom." With the development of English commerce the use of these most convenient instruments of commercial traffic would of course increase, yet, according to Mr. Chitty, the earliest case on the subject to be found in the English books is that of Martin v. Boure, Cro. Jac. 6 (1603), in the first James I. Up to this time the practice of making these bills negotiable by indorsement had been unknown, and the earlier bills are found to be made payable to a man and his assigns, though in some instances to bearer. But about this period, that is to say, at the close of the sixteenth or the commencement of the seventeenth century, the practice of making bills payable to order, and transferring them by indorsement, took its rise. Hartmann, in a very learned book on Bills of Exchange, recently published in Germany, states that the first known mention of the indorsement of these instruments occurs in the Neapolitan Pragmatica of 1607. Savary, cited by Mons. Nouguier, in his work "Des Lettres de Change," had assigned to it a later date, namely 1620. From its obvious convenience this practice speedily came into general use, and, as part of the general custom of merchants, received the sanction of our Courts. At first the use of bills |