the property under a given price, it would be a lawful transaction, and would not vitiate the sale. But if a number of bidders were employed by the owner to enhance the price by a pretended competition, and the bidding by them was not real and sincere, but a mere artifice in combination with the owner to mislead the judgment and inflame the zeal of others, it would be a fraudulent and void sale. So, it will be a void sale if the purchaser prevails on the persons attending the sale to desist from bidding, by reason of suggestions by way of appeal to the sympathies of the company. CHAPTER XI. INTRODUC- Utility of bills. Origin of bills. BILLS OF EXCHANGE. BILLS of exchange are the most useful of all commercial instruments, and have greatly contributed to the extension of trade by facilitating commercial operations, economising capital, assisting credit, and promoting the circulation of wealth. They represent money, merchandise, and labour, and are themselves a merchandise upon which large gains and losses are realised. Economically and commercially they fulfil most useful functions, whilst they are indispensable for the transmission of funds from town to town, and from country to country, and they act as securities for the numerous and complicated transactions of trade. The origin of bills of exchange is not accurately ascertained. They were unknown to the ancients. In Greece and Rome there were money-changers, and they even caused money to pass from place to place, as did Cicero, when he sent his son to Athens, to study, but they did so by letters of credit. It was not till the middle age that the instrument now known as "bill of exchange" was introduced. Some writers ascribe the invention to the Jews. When banished from France, where they had left their property deposited in the hands of their friends, they found no other mode to recover that money than by making use of travellers and pilgrims to whom they gave letters, in a concise style, for the purpose. They afterwards initiated in this new industry the merchants of Amsterdam, and thence it spread throughout Europe. Other writers attribute the invention to the Ghibelines, who, when chased from Florence by the Guelphs, having taken up their residence at Amsterdam, began there to trade in bills of exchange, which they called Polizza di Cambio. It is, however, probable that bills of exchange were never invented in their present perfect form, but were suggested by a variety of causes, and subjected to gradual improvements. Though known as far back as in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it is probable that their form was very different, and that they did not settle down into the present model or uniform instrument till long after. We know, moreover, that they were not made payable to order till long after the use had become almost universal, of bills in In England bills of exchange must have been known as early Introduction as A. D. 1367, inasmuch as King Edward I., in that year, England. ordered certain money collected in England for the Pope not to be remitted to him in coin or bullion, but by way change (a). In 1381, bills of exchange were expressly referred to in an Act of Parliament of Richard II. of ex SECTION 1. NATURE AND REQUISITES. BRITISH LAW. A bill of exchange is an open letter of request, addressed by Definitions. one person to a second, desiring him to pay, at a certain time therein named, a sum of money, to himself, or to a third person, or to any other to whom himself or that other person shall order it to be paid, or to the bearer. A promissory note is a written engagement by one person to pay another person therein named, or to any other to whom he shall order it to be paid, absolutely and unconditionally, a certain sum of money at a time specified therein. By the statute of Anne (b), promissory notes were put on the same footing as bills of exchange, and by the statute of William III. (c), inland bills were regarded as foreign bills, except that they need not be protested for non-payment. The person who makes the bill is called the drawer, the person to whom the bill is addressed is called the drawee, and the person in whose favour it is drawn is the payee. If the drawee (a) Rymer Fœdera, vol. ii. p. 1042. In 1394 an ordinance was passed in Barcelona on bills of exchange; and in 1462, Louis XI. issued the first decree on the subject in France. Baldus, an Italian jurist, names bills of exchange as far back as 1328, and in India they (b) 3 & 4 Anne, c. 9. Designation of parties in the bill. Difference between bills of exchange and promissory notes. The bill or note must be in writing. Form of bills and notes. accepts the bill, he is called the acceptor. The person who makes the note is called the maker, and the person in whose favour the note is made is called the payee. When a bill or note is endorsed by the payee, the person so endorsing it becomes the endorser, and the person to whom it is endorsed the endorsee. While a promissory note continues in its original shape of a promise by a person to pay another, it bears no similitude to a bill of exchange. It is when it is endorsed that the resemblance begins; for then it becomes an order by the endorser upon the maker of the note to pay the endorsee. As soon as a note is endorsed by the payee, the endorser stands in the capacity of a drawer, the maker of the note as the acceptor, and the endorsee as the payee. If it be ambiguous whether an instrument be a bill or note, the party holding it is entitled to treat it either as one or the other (a). And an instrument which appears, on common observation, to be a bill of exchange, may be treated as such, although words may be introduced into it for the purpose of deception which might make it a promissory note (b). And an instrument in the form of a bill of exchange, but not addressed to any one, may be treated as a promissory note (c). The bill or note must be in writing and on paper, or on substances analogous to it, but may be written in ink or pencil (d). The body of the bill or note may be in printed letters, but the signature must be in the handwriting of the party executing it, or, if it be signed with his mark, it must be verified by some person attesting it at his request. The following is the common form of bills and notes; but no precise words are necessary to be used in bills or notes, provided there be an order or a promise to pay in an absolute manner, and at all events (e). (a) Edis v. Bury, 6 B. & C. 433. (b) Lloyd v. Oliver, 18 Q. B. 473; Allan v. Mawson, 4 Camp. 115; Miller v. Thompson, 3 M. & G. 576. (c) Fielder v. Marshall, 30 L. J. N. S. C. P. 158. (d) The imperfection of this mode of writing, its being so subject to obliterations, and the impossibility of proving it when it is obliterated, render this mode of writing particularly objectionable. Geary v. Tysic, 5 B. & C. 234; Closson v. Hearn, 4 Verm. U. S. 11; Brown v. Butchers' Drovers' Bank, 6 Hill N. Y. R. 443. (e) Chadwick v. Allan, Stra. 706; Peto v. Reynolds, 7 Exch. 410. FORM OF AN INLAND BILL. £ (sum of money). Two months after date (time of payment), I promise to pay Mr. (payee's name) or order, One hundred pounds (sum in full), for value received. B. B. (Maker's name). The sum must be in money, and, if not otherwise stated, it is Sum. presumed to be the money of the place where the bill or note is payable (a). The sum must be a specific one, and any expression qualifying it under an uncertainty renders the instrument void. Thus a promise to pay a sum of money, " with all other sums that may be due" (b), or" and all fines according to rule" (c), or" and the demands of a sick club," would not be valid as a promissory note (d). The sum is usually expressed in words at length in the body of the bill or note, and in figures at the top of it, and where a difference appears in the amount between the figures at the top and the words in the body of the instrument, the amount expressed in words prevails. Where, however, there is doubt as to the amount on the face of the instrument, no extrinsic evidence is allowed to explain it (e). But if there be simple inaccuracy in the statement of the sum, if otherwise intelligible, it will not vitiate the bill or note (ƒ). (a) Sibree v. Tripp, 15 M. & W. 23; Anon., Buller, N. S. 272; Ex parte Imeson, 2 Rose, 225. (b) Smith v. Nightingale, 2 Stark. 375; Barlow v. Broadhurst, 4 Moore, 471. (c) Ayrey v. Fearnsides, 4 M. & W. 168; Firbank v. Bell, 2 B. & Ald. 36. VOL. I. (d) Bolton v. Dugdale, 4 B. & Ad. 619; Cushman v. Haynes, 20 Pick. U. S. 176. (c) Saunderson v. Piper, 5 Bing. N. C. 425. (f) Rex v. Post, Bayl. Bill, 8; Phipps v. Tanner, 5 C. & P. 488. A A |