may all other bills or notes not showing the contrary. Restrictive indorsements and qualified acceptances are fully recognized; an acceptance, without more, of a bill drawn payable at a particular place being (as before) a general acceptance, so that the acceptor is liable even without presentment there, though not so the drawer and indorsers; but if the bill be accepted payable at a particular place, which requires presentment there to render the acceptor liable at all, a presentment there, too late to charge the drawer and indorsers, will yet charge the acceptor, in the absence of an express stipulation to the contrary. Reasonable time within which to present a bill on demand, so as to charge the drawer or indorsers, is declared to be a mixed question of law and fact; but unreasonable time, after which an innocent transferee of such an instrument is affected with defects of title of which he had no notice, is made a question of fact only. Accommodating parties become liable as soon as value is given, and notice is immaterial. A non-apparent alteration will not affect a holder in due course. In this Edition the chronological order has been followed: thus, the first ten Chapters are devoted to a description of the instrument, the next two to the title of the holder, the following six to his duties, and the remainder to his rights, how they may be lost or qualified, or enforced by action or proof in bankruptcy. The substance of each section of the Code appears in its appropriate place in the text, but the whole Act is given in the Appendix. MAURICE BARNARD BYLES. TEMPLE, June 1st, 1885. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THERE is no vestige of the existence of bills of exchange* among the ancients, and the precise period of their introduction is somewhat controverted. It is, however, certain that they were in use in the fourteenth century. Indeed, * Il n'y a aucun vestige de notre contrat de change, ni des lettres de change, dans le droit Romain. Ce n'est qu'il n'arrivât quelquefois chez les Romains, que l'on comptât pour quelqu'un une somme d'argent dans un lieu à une personne, qui se chargeoit de lui en faire compter autant dans un autre lieu. Ainsi nous voyons, dans les lettres de Cicéron à Atticus, que Cicéron voulant envoyer son fils faire ses études à Athènes, s'informe si pour épargner à son fils de porter lui-même à Athènes l'argent dont il y auroit besoin, on ne trouveroit pas quelque occasion de le compter, à Rome, à quelqu'un qui se chargeroit de le lui faire compter à Athènes.-Epist. ad Att. xii. 24; xv. 25. Mais cela n'étoit pas la négociation de lettres de change telle qu'elle a lieu parmi nous; cela se faisoit par de simples mandats. Cicéron chargeoit quelqu'un de ses amis de Rome qui avoit de l'argent à recevoir à Athènes, de faire tenir de l'argent à son fils à Athènes; et cet ami, pour exécuter le mandat de Cicéron, écrivoit à quelqu'un des débiteurs qu'il avoit à Athènes, et le chargeoit de compter une somme d'argent au fils de Cicéron. Au reste, on ne voit point qu'il se practiquât chez les Romains, comme parmi nous, un commerce de lettres de change: et nous trouvons au contraire, en la loi 4, § 1, ff. de naut. Fæn., qui est de Papinien, que ceux qui prêtoient de l'argent à la grosse aventure aux marchands qui trafiquoient sur mer, envoyoient un de leurs esclaves pour recevoir de leur débiteur la somme prêtée lorsqu'il seroit arrivé au port où il devoit vendre ses marchandises; ce qui certainement n'aurait pas été nécessaire, si le commerce des lettres de change eût été en usage chez les Romains. Quelques auteurs ont prétendu que l'usage du contrat de change et des lettres de change est venu de la Lombardie, et que les Juifs, qui y étoient établis, en ont été les inventeurs: d autres en attribuent l'inven they are mentioned as "letteres d'eschange" in the English Statute Book (3 Ric. 2, c. 3), as early as the year 1379; though we find in our English reports no decision relating to them earlier than the reign of James the First.* : It is probable that a bill of exchange was, in its original, nothing more than a letter of credit from a merchant in one country, to his debtor, a merchant in another, requesting him to pay the debt to a third person, who carried the letter, and happened to be travelling to the place where the debtor resided. It was discovered by experience, that this mode of making payments was extremely convenient to all parties to the creditor, for he could thus receive his debt without trouble, risk or expense-to the debtor, for the facility of payment was an equal accommodation to him, and perhaps drew after it facility of credit-to the bearer of the letter, who found himself in funds in a foreign country, without the danger and incumbrance of carrying specie. At first, perhaps, the letter contained many other things besides the order to give credit. But it was found that the original bearer might often, with advantage, transfer it to another. The letter was then disencumbered of all other matter; it was open and not sealed, and the paper on which it was written gradually shrank to the slip now in use. The assignee was, perhaps, desirous to know, beforehand, whether the party, to whom it was addressed, would pay it, and sometimes showed it to him for that purpose; his promise to pay was the origin of acceptances. tion aux Florentins, lorsqu'ayant été chassés de leur pays par la faction de Gibelins, ils s'établirent à Lyon et en d'autres villes. Il n'y a rien sur cela de certain, si ce n'est que les lettres de change étoient en usage dès le quatorzième siècle. C'est ce qui paroît par une loi de Venise de ce temps sur cette matière, rapportée par Nicholas de Passeribus, en son livre, De Script. Privat. lib. 3.-Pothier, Traité du Contrat de Change, Partie Prem., Chap. 1, s. 1. * Martin v. Boure, Cro. Jac. 6. These letters or bills, the representatives of debts due in a foreign country, were sometimes more, sometimes less, in demand; they became, by degrees, articles of traffic; and the present complicated and abstruse practice and theory of exchange was gradually formed. Upon their introduction into our own country, other conveniences, as great as in international transactions, were found to attend them. They offered an easy and most effectual expedient for eluding the stubborn rule of the common law, that a debt is not assignable; furnishing the assignee with an assignment binding on the original creditor, capable of being ratified by the debtor, perhaps guaranteed by a series of responsible sureties, and assignable still further, ad infinitum. Not only did these simple instruments transfer value from place to place, at home or abroad, and balance the accounts of distant cities without the transmission of money; not only did they assign debts in the most convenient, extensive and effectual manner; but the value of the debt was improved by being authenticated in a bill of exchange, for it was thus reduced to a certain amount, which the debtor, having accepted, could not afterwards unsettle; evidence of the original demand was rendered unnecessary, and the bill afforded a plainer and more indisputable title to the whole debt. A creditor, too, by assigning to a man of property a bill at a long date, given him by his debtor, could obtain, for a trifling discount, his money in advance. Credit to the buyer was thus rendered consistent with ready money to the seller, and the reconciliation of the apparent inconsistency was brought about by a further benefit to a third person, for it was effected by advantageously employing the surplus and idle funds of the capitalist. At the first introduction of bills of exchange, however, the English Courts of Law regarded them with a jealous and evil eye, allowing them only between merchants; but their obvious advantages soon compelled the Judges to sanction their use by all persons; and of late years the policy of the Bench has been industriously to remove every impediment, and add all possible facilities to these wheels of the vast commercial system. The advantages of a bill of exchange in reducing a debt to a certainty, curtailing the evidence necessary to enforce payment, and affording the means of procuring ready money by discount, often induced creditors to draw a bill for the sake of acceptance; though there might be no intention of transferring the debt. Such a transaction pointed out the way to a shorter mode of effecting the same purpose by means of a promissory note. Promissory notes soon circulated like bills of exchange, and became as common as bills themselves. Notes for small sums, payable to bearer on demand, were found to answer most purposes of the ordinary circulating medium, and have at length, in all civilized countries, supplanted a great portion of the gold and silver previously in circulation. Great, however, as was the saving, and numerous the advantages arising from the substitution, it was discovered by experience that the dangers and inconveniences of an unlimited issue of paper money were at least as great. The Legislature, have, therefore, found it necessary to place the issue of negotiable notes for small sums under the restrictions which will be pointed out in this work; and experience has proved that the only mode of preserving paper money on a level with gold, is to compel the utterers to exchange it for gold, at the option of the holder. And peradventure even then, unless the State control the issue of paper, on principles controverted and imperfectly understood at present, the value of the whole circulating medium may decline together, as compared with other commodities or the currency of foreign countries, and the consequent tendency of the |