[684] “As the Turks are unacquainted with insurance, they do not lend
money but at the rate of fifteen or twenty per cent. But when they lend
to merchants who trade by sea, they charge thirty per cent.”--Remarques
d’un Voyageur Moderne au Lévant. Amst. 1773, 8vo.
[685] De Jure Naturæ et Gentium.
[686] Droit de la Nature.
[687] De Jure Maritimo. Holmiæ, 1650.
[688] Collegium Grotianum, Francof. 1722, 4to.
[689] Lib. xxiii. cap. 44.
[690] Lib. xxv. cap. 3.
[691] Lib. v. cap. 18. Langenbec, in his Anmerkungen über das
Hamburgische Schiff-und-Seerecht, p. 370, is of opinion that no traces
of insurance are to be found either in Livy or Suetonius.
[692] Epist. ad Famil. ii. ep. 17.
[693] Ayreri Diatribe de Cambialis Instituti Vestigiis apud Romanos,
added to Uhle’s edition of Heineccii Elementa Juris Cambialis.
[694] De Jure Maritimo et Nautico. Gryphis. 1652.
[695] Lex Mercatoria, or the Ancient Law-Merchant, by Gerard Malynes.
London, 1656, fol. p. 105.
[696] Seldeni Mare Clausum. Lond. 1636, p. 428.
[697] Bourdeaux, 1661, 4to.
[698] Auszug der Historie des Allgemeinen und Preussischen See-rechts.
Konigsberg, 1747, 4to, p. 32.
[699] De Jure Mercatorum et Commerciorum.
[700] Entitled, ’T boek der Zee-rechten. Amst. 1664, 4to.
[701] The title runs thus: Il consolato del mare, nei quale si
comprendono tutti gli statuti et ordini, disposti da gli antichi per
ogni cosa di mercantia et di navigare. Leyden, 1704, 4to.
[702] In that old treatise, Le Guidon, inserted in Cleirac, it
is remarked, chap. i. art. i. that in old times insurances were
made without any writings: they were then called _Assecurances en
confiance_; Confidential insurances.
[M‘Culloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce, art. _Insurance_, observes
respecting this passage, that “Beckmann seems to have thought that the
practice of insurance originated in Italy, in the latter part of the
fifteenth or the early part of the sixteenth century. But the learned
Spanish antiquary, Don Antonio de Capmany, has given, in his very
valuable publication on the History and Commerce of Barcelona (Memorias
Historicas sobre la Marina, &c., de Barcelona, t. ii. p. 383), an
ordinance relative to insurance, issued by the magistrates of that city
in 1435; whereas the earliest Italian law on the subject is nearly a
century later, being dated in 1523. It is however exceedingly unlikely,
had insurance been as early practised in Italy as in Catalonia, that
the former should have been so much behind the latter in subjecting it
to any fixed rules; and it is still more unlikely that the practice
should have escaped, as is the case, all mention by any previous
Italian writer. We therefore agree entirely in Capmany’s opinion, that
until some authentic evidence to the contrary be produced, Barcelona
should be regarded as the birth-place of this most useful and beautiful
application of the doctrine of chances.” Had M‘Culloch consulted the
treatise on Bills of Exchange, given in a subsequent part of the work
(vol. iii. p. 430), he would have found that Beckmann, in noticing the
curious memoirs of Capmany, with which he had _then_ become acquainted,
distinctly mentions “An ordinance of the year 1458 respecting
insurance, which required that underwriting should be done in the
presence of a notary, and declared _polices o scriptores privades_ to
be null and void.”]
[703] Versuche über Assecuranzen, etc. Hamb. 1753, 4to.
[704] I found nothing on the subject, either in Delia decima--e della
Mercatura de’ Fiorentini, fino al secolo xvi. Lisbona e Lucca, 1765,
1766, 4 vols. 4to, which contains a variety of useful information
respecting the history of the Florentine trade, or in Mecatti, Storia
Chronologica della città di Firenze. In Napoli 1775, 2 vols. 4to.
[705] Stracchæ aliorumque Jurisconsultorum de Cambiis, Sponsionibus,
&c., Decisiones. Amst. 1669, fol. p. 24.
[706] It may be found in Ordonantien ende Placcaeten ghepubliceert
Vlaenderen. Antwerp, 1662, fol. i. p. 360.
[707] Ordonantien ende Placcaeten, ii. p. 307. Groote Placaet-boeck der
Ver. Nederlanden, i. p. 796. Magens, p. 397.
[708] Ordonantien ende Placcaeten, ut supra, p. 335. Groote
Placaet-boeck, i. p. 828, and in the additions, ii. p. 2116.
[709] The changes which this institution afterwards underwent, with
an extract from its regulations, may be seen in La Richesse de la
Hollande. Lond. 1778, 4to, i. p. 81.
[710] [The marine insurers are called in this country _under-writers_,
because they write their names under the policy. Under the authority
of statute 6 George I. cap. 18, two corporate bodies, called the
_Royal Exchange Assurance Company_ and the _London Assurance Company_,
were chartered by the crown. There are at present seven marine
insurance companies in London:--the two old chartered companies
above-mentioned; two established immediately upon the passing of the
act of the year 1824, the _Alliance_ and the _Indemnity Mutual_; the
_Marine_, established in 1836; and the _General Marine_ and _Neptune_,
established in 1839.]
[711] Dictionary of Commerce.
[712] Krunitz, Oekonomische Encyclopedie, xiii. p. 221; where an
account may be found of other companies.
[713] Winkelmanns Oldenburgischen Friedens- und der benachbarten Oerter
Kriegshandlungen. 1671 fol. p. 67.
[714] [The publisher of the present volumes pays upwards of £200 per
annum for insurance on his stock in trade, and therefore feels strongly
the force of this observation.--H. G. B.]
[715] Life insurances have been forbidden by the laws of France and of
many other foreign states, as being of a gambling nature, and opening
the door to a variety of abuses and frauds.