commercial enterprise, but devising and maturing regulations and rules to assist those concerned therein. Why, then, could not lawyers before Holt's time, find the path which he first traced out, and shape the materials which were as ready to their hands as to his? The truth is (and the explanation is all the more humiliating to us because a foreign jurist points it out), English lawyers have ever been averse to innovations: wedded to the common law, and bigoted to the narrow principles enunciated by it, they would not (for it would be an insult to say they could not) look beyond them. Despising, in their love of what they considered not only an unrivalled system, but their own, aught that was foreign to it, and wilfully ignorant for a long period of those universal principles, not so much of jurisprudence as of common sense, which have happily been since their day imported into more branches of our legal institutions than that of mercantile law, they allowed years to elapse, before any attempt was made to enable the judicial tribunals to put themselves in communication with the enlarging and improving views and doctrines which mercantile enterprise had raised and developed. English lawyers did at length, however, take shame at the advance of the nation beyond them in these points; but it was not till men like Holt, Mansfield, and Scott appeared, that they were induced to throw off their indifference for the usages, laws, and institutions of other countries, and seek the aid of history, and the experience of others, for the improvement, of their own systems. In the rapid sketch which I am now about to give of the progress of commercial legislation, you will not be startled if I take up my story from as early a time as possible, nor think that, like him who "Gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo," I propose to publish a quarto of introduction to the matter in hand. And yet Horace's line above quoted reminds me that I might even go back to the Iliad for an illustration of the earliest specimens of commercial transactions, and speak of the long-haired Greeks buying wine with money, or exchanging their iron, and skins, and cattle for the same.1 'See Digest. 18. 1. 1. 1. In the history of ancient commercial law I would draw your notice to those two important regions-the East and West; in the first of which we have memorials enough to tell us, not only of the immense extent and influence of commercial transactions in the earliest times to which we can go back, but sufficient data from which to assume that countries such as India and China, Judæa and Phoenicia, renowned as they were for commercial enterprise, were probably not without laws1 and legislation by which their commerce and their civilisation were protected and extended. I will not enter upon details that you probably are well acquainted with, nor take up your time by recounting what is to be found in the pages of Heeren, Robertson, Vincent, and others; but there are one or two matters that appear to me deserving of notice in a reference to the commercial transactions of the ancients. Of these, not the least important was the ancient merchandise in silk, by which not only were the eastern and western worlds brought into direct communication in very early times, but the value of China as a mercantile country was felt in Europe, though its whereabouts was unknown. Of its remarkable influence upon the manners of the Roman people we have curious testimony in the pages of Tacitus; for, from a decree of the senate which he cites (Ann. ii. c. 33), it appears that it was necessary to forbid the use of silken robes to men, "ne viros fœdaret;" and there are two singular circumstances, in connection with the old Roman trade in this article, that Robertson has deemed worthy of special notice:one, that in the teeth of an increased and increasing demand, the importations remained stationary, and for 250 years the price continued exorbitantly high; the other, that, with this vigorous demand before them, no steps were taken to learn any thing of the regions where the article was produced. As it was from China that the article was principally furnished, there must have been a trade between India and China, and in Rome there was a ready market for Indian produce, which found its way there in great profusion and variety; but the geographical knowledge of 1 See Huet, Hist. du Com. Heeren. De Pastoret, Hist. de la Legislation. these countries was almost nil in Rome. A remarkable reference to the value of the eastern trade is to be found in the Roman law. -(D. 39, 4. 16. 7.) The Bible,' while it chronicles the power and industry of the ancient kingdoms of the world, whose deeds are recorded in its pages, tells us, at the same time, of the wisdom of their laws, and the prophet Ezekiel (xxvii.) in his magnificent account of ancient Tyre, dwells with equal force upon the skill of its judges and the vigour of its commercial tribunals. Nor are there wanting other passages from which we may assume the existence of rules regulating the contracts of individuals, enjoining honesty and good faith in mercantile transactions, and forbidding certain kinds of merchandise. Of one colony of Tyre I need not do more than mention the name, in order to recall the recollection of its ancient commercial glories, its wealth, and the vigour with which it contested the supremacy of the civilized world with Rome. It was Carthage which, preserving the laws of the mother country, owed its commercial prosperity to them. The commerce of the ancient world was long in the hands of the Phoenicians, who, having kept the carrying trade of the Mediterranean in their power, and being possessed of great seats of manufacture, such as Tyre and Sidon (Herod. i. 1.), transmitted the spirit of enterprise with which they were animated to other countries; and from the eastern world the zeal for commerce penetrating to the western, in process of time was welcomed by the two countries whose history has been, and as long as the love of historical inquiry animates us, must be the first objects of our admiration and wonder-I mean Greece and Rome. The Rhodians were celebrated for their power and riches by Homer (Il. ii. 656), as favourites of Jupiter, who showered upon them great wealth; and Strabo dwells with pleasure upon the admirable nature of their constitution and laws, and the ease with which they administered affairs of state generally, and particularly those relative to marine.-(L. 14.) Θαυμαστη η ευνομία. Δημοκηδεις δ' εισιν οι Ροδίοι, καιπερ ου δημοκρατουμενοι. 1 Proverbs xx. 14; Levit. xxv. 14; Exod. xxxv. 1, 2. Two cities of the Roman empire deserve some special notice in connection with commerce and mercantile law, and of them I will say a few words. Rhodes-which had once belonged to the Phonicians, and having been wrested from them by the Corinthians, was afterwards erected into a sovereignty, embracing several of the islands in the Archipelago, as well as parts of Caria and Lycia—did not remain contented with the limits of so narrow a territory, or with the obscurity of a comparatively unknown name; but, in addition to an enterprising spirit of colonization, by which its inhabitants spread along the regions of Magna Græcia, Sicily, the Balearic isles, and even penetrated into Gaul itself, it was destined to achieve an illustrious reputation by the fame of its maritime regulations. In alliance with the Roman people, before it was forced by them into subjection, Rhodes had the glory of governing by her wisdom those who were compelled to acknowledge the superiority of her arms; and the laws which she promulgated have not only been celebrated' by the greatest of all Roman orators, and proclaimed by imperial authority to be of equal weight with the laws of Rome, but have had the singular honour of being allowed a place in the digested volume of those laws. It is true that all that we can undoubtedly assume to be genuine are the fragments that appear in the Pandects of Justinian; but the fact of their having been adopted by Rome in that way, and the influence which they have since exerted on modern maritime legislation, are valuable testimonies to the wisdom of the ancients in the matter of mercantile law. In an historical inquiry, however brief and rapid, into the origin and fortunes of commercial law, it would, I conceive, be an act of unpardonable neglect in any writer, to pass by this remarkable attempt of an ancient people to systematize the regulations on the subject of maritime law, with a mere allusion to their existence; but, bound up as they are with the Roman law, and commented on by the Roman lawyers, I prefer leaving the consideration of some of the leading features in them, to that part of my lecture which speaks of the influence of the Roman law on mercantile regulations; and, therefore, I shall now draw your attention to the regulations by which the commerce of the Athenians was encouraged and enlarged. And, first, as to the trade and merchants of Athens. Now, here nothing is more striking than the admirable way in which the ruling powers in the state not only improved the advantages which nature had given their country in safe harbours, secure from adverse winds, and accessible from all parts, but fostered to the utmost the inclination of the people for mercantile adventure. Themistocles, who was the founder of their naval power, saw the immense use that might be made for state purposes of a mercantile marine. By him, therefore, industry and commerce were encouraged and protected,' and the capabilities of the Piræus as a trading station and harbour opened up. Half a century afterwards, Pericles, following in the same steps, turned his attention towards the development of the internal traffic of the country, as well as that of the foreign trade; so that in process of time Athens not only offered the safest port to navigators, but foreign merchants, finding there the readiest markets for their goods, frequent exchanges, and payment in ready money of the purest silver, were attracted in such large numbers as to form no unimportant portion of the inhabitants; and, under the name of proxeni, eventually to be admitted to many of the advantages of citizenship.❜ Merchants, then, were not only honoured, but were protected by special laws and special tribunals, to which I shall draw attention presently. Under this head, too, must be noticed the associations or corporations that, under the name of spaver, types of the guilds and companies of later times, were formed among the citizens for various purposes, not the least of which were the unions for commerce and shipping. Many of these were possessed of property, could make decrees, and were regulated in their 'Corn, Nep. vit. Themist. 2 Anacharsis iv., cap. 55; Thucyd. ii., 38; Boeckh's Economy, vol. i. |