that if the vender of goods hears of the bankruptcy or insolvency of the vender, he may stop them at any time before they have reached the hands of the vender. This is called stopping in transitu. But in sending goods by sea, there is this anomaly, that the bill of lading signed by the captain is negotiable, and assignable as a bill of exchange, and passes all interest in the consignment; and as it is generally sent to the consignee by the post, and arrives before the goods, the consignee may actually have assigned the bill of lading, and disposed of the cargo before the ship gets to port. In this case, therefore, if the consigner wishes to stop the goods, he must agree to indemnify the master for acting contrary to his undertaking, or the master must deliver it to the assignee. In his chapter on salvage, which is the recompence given to those who are the means of saving a ship or her cargo from impending peril, or after actual wreck, the author states the several satutes by which regulations have been imposed, with regard to the administering of such relief, the extent of the payment, and the mode of settling and recovering it. These statutes extend to cases of loss by capture, and by other means; and do not take away the old remedies by the courts of common law or admiralty. We wish that the knowledge of what is here communicated may decrease the numerous cases of fraud and oppression which every day disgrace our coast. The dissolution of contracts for carriage of goods, are stated to be by consent of the parties, or by matter extrinsic; such as wars, or the passing of permanent laws, rendering such voyages illegal; but mere embargo or transferring causes will not annul them. In the fourth part, the wages of merchant seamen are considered in four chapters; the hiring, the carriage, and payment of freight, the loss and forfei ture of it, and the proceedings to obtain the payment. The mode of hiring is now matter of statute regulation, the particulars of which are here fully given. As to wages, it is stated, that if a sailor is injured by accident in the voyage, or is unjustly discharged by the master, still he is intitled to his full wages: he is intitled to part if he be impressed during the voyage, and his personal representatives will be so, if he die before its completion. The general principle however is, that freight is the mother of wages, and that if no freight be earned, no wages are earned. If this rule be sometimes attended with hardship, it produces much benefit in uniting the interests of all concerned in the adventure, and inducing the greatest activity and zeal in the crew in cases of danger. Desertion, or mutinying, deprive the seaman of his wages, and some cases may arise where injury having happened from their negligence, their wages may be applied to the payment of the da mages. The contract may be enforced either in the admiralty or courts of civil law. Upon the whole, Mr. Abbot has done great justice to the object of his undertaking. In a very clear manner he informs his readers of the English statutes and judicial decision upon the topics of which he treats, and the different doc trines that prevail in foreign countries, or are to be found upon them in foreign writers. He enters little into undetermined or speculative points, but aims at communicating what has been held to be the law. It may be hoped, that the many difficulties which remain in these subjects will be more easily solved by the public: and that, whilst it obtains for English laws their merited praise, it will lead to the essential improvement of those which regulate maritime commerce in every part of the world. ART. XVIII. A New and Complete Abridgment of all the Laws of Excise, from the Commencement thereof down to the present Day: Including fall Instructions for Justices of the Peace and Officers of Excise, in every thing which relates to the Execution of these Laws; with an Appendix, containing approved and useful Precedents of Proceedings of every Kind on the Excise Laws, both before Justices of the Peace and in the Exchequer By PETER JONAS, late Supervisor of Excise. THE excise laws bid defiance to every thing but a sort of index. The present work has not, however, the sole merit of being the last upon a perpetually ac cumulating subject. It contains, first, an abridgment of the several acts of poses. The precedents we presume to ART. XIX. A Pocket Dictionary of the Law of Bills of Exchequer, Promissory Notes, Bank Notes, Checks; with an Appendix, containing the Abstracts of Acts, and select Cases relative to negotiable Securities, Table of notarial Fees, Stamps, &c. By JOHN TWING MAXWELL, Esq. of the honourable Society of the Inner Temple, Author of "The Spirit of Marine Law," &c. THE principal object of this work is to afford to mercantile men a more ready reference to the various legal decisions on the subjects of which it treats. Hence is to be attained by means of these treatises, which, from their scientific ar rangement, can be used with facility only by professional men. For this purpose the author has adopted an alphabetical arrangement, and has taken care to make the words sufficiently numerous, and to give references from one to another. 1 ART. XX. The work seems to us carefully ere. cuted, and well adapted to obtain its particular object, at the same time that it is not wholly unworthy of professional regard. The preliminary essay touches on such topics as are usually found in prefaces to works of this nature, and contains a quotation from Milton, which, besides the general impropriety of forc ing poetical quotation into subjects to which it is so entirely unsuitable, is, we think, distinguished by its own peculiar unhappiness. Brown's Civil Law. IN order to make his book of more general interest, Dr. Brown has, in this second edition, greatly compressed that part which treated of the ecclesiastical law of Ireland, and has supplied its place by enlarging on the law of the admiralty, and showing its, connexion with the civil law. As the character of this work is now perfectly well known from the first edition, we will only here observe, that the alterations made by the author in the second edition, are extremely judicious. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Ireland might, as an object of curious research, secure the attention of the an tiquary; but the law of nations has become doubly interesting by the con vulsions it suffered during the late war, and the discussions which its events occasioned. In the additions made to his second volume, Dr. Brown has availed himself of all his own extensive reading, and the late decisions in courts of justice, to render his treatise on the admiralty courts and laws as valuable as possible. ART. XXI. Essays, on the Action for Money had and received, on the Law of Assurances, and on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes. By WILLIAM DAVID EVANS, Esq. Barrister at Law. 8vo. THE volume here presented to the public is part of a plan for exhibiting a view of the legal principles by which some of the more important commercial transactions of this country are regulated, including however, besides subjects strictly commercial, such other topics as are of general application. This plan the author proposes to execute in a series of essays on each particular subject, of which three are now before us, viz. one on the action for money had and received; a second on the law of insurances; and a third on the law of bills of exchange and promissory notes. The work is rather calculated to display to the general reader the principles of the law on each particular head, than to afford practical information to the pro fessional lawyer, though undoubtedly it may have its use even to him. Where principle is the great object of discussion, a very clear and distinct arrangement is more indispensably necessary than in works of minuteness and particularity; and we are sorry to observe rather a defect of arrangement in these essays, an objection which further experience in compositions of this nature will, we hope, enable the author to avoid. It may, perhaps, be proper to mention to the general reader, that the opinion entertained by Mr. Evans, that where no moral obligation intervenes, an action might be maintained to recover back money paid under a mistake of law, cannot, since the case of Bilbie and Lumley, (2 East. 469) which was determined subsequent to the publication of these essays, be considered as just, though it is certain that Mr. Evans had not formed his opinion on light grounds; for until the above case, there is no direct decision on the question, and even the obiter dicta of some judges are to be found in favour of the action. CHAPTER XIII. COMMERCE. IT is not easy to draw the line between commerce and political economy: perhaps the plan which we have adopted is, upon the whole, as good as any, namely, to throw by themselves into a separate chapter, such books as treat practically upon trade, or consist for the most part of tables for the use of the exchange and counting-house, and to refer all works, on the general principles of commerce, or speculations on the subject, to the latter subdivision of chapter III. On History and Politics. There are three books on this subject that have come under our notice; but one of them, the "Dictionnaire Commerçante" of Peuchet, has been, by inadvert ence, placed at the end of Chapter III. the two remaining are as follow. ART. I. Tables calculated for the Arbitration of Exchanges, both simple and compound; with an Account of the Currencies and Monies of the principal commercial Cities in Europe. By J. R. TESCHEMACHER. 4to. A VERY curious work was published in 1779, at Madrid, entitled "Memorias historicas sobre la Marina, Commercio, y Artes de Barcelona," which establishes the curious fact, that from Barcelona the modern commercial world has derived its maritime law; and its bills of exchange. How far these things are borrowed from the regulations and practices of the ancient world may be doubtful; but it is evident that the Barcelonese are likely to have learned them at Constantinople, as their intercourse with that city was so great, that they still possess a privilege, or mercantile charter, of the emperor Andronicus II. dated 1290, and drawn up both in Greek and in Spanish. Wheresoever bills of exchange originated, they are become astonishingly numerous; so that to deal in them, either as broker or banker, is itself one of the most important branches of commerce. They are, however, multiplied beyond the bounds of equity, by the too frequent practice of drawing and redrawing; and the law concerning them, which, in cases of bankruptcy, permits the holder to make his election against which indorser he will prove the debt, instead of compelling him to prove only against the immediate transferrer of the bill, gives to them an artificial value, very favourable to this mischievous multiplication. The number, therefore, of brokers, merchants, and bankers, to whom geod tables of exchange are convenient, must undoubtedly be immense. Before the war, Hahn's table was much resorted to, as a conveniently compressed catalogue of the nonies of interchange; and Beawe's tables, as a lucid, orderly arrangement of the value in foreign monies of any English sum, from one pound to a thousand, at the several probable rates of exchange. These rates of exchange have greatly altered of late; so that the pendulum of par (to use the word in Mr. Teschemacher's sense), now oscillates between higher values in one set of intercourses, and between lower values in another set of intercourses, than was formerly usual. Hence the old ta bles omit some of the higher and some of the lower calculations, which are in daily use: it is necessary, therefore, to republish them with extensions and improvements. Whether this might not have been better accomplished by simply reprinting the old books, with the addition of the deficient reckonings, it is for the mercantile world to pronounce. To us it does not appear that the introduction is very clear or complete: a man of letters would not easily learn from it the doctrine and practice of exchange. The tables have that sort of arithmetical merit which involves the praise of pati ence and accuracy: it will sound, and only sound, like panegyric if we add, that they record many of the observations of experience, and display much of the information of the cosmopolite. ART. II. System of Book-keeping, on a Plan entirely new. By W. BOARDMAN. 4to. pp. 108. BOOK-KEEPING, like most arts of an old cash-book, from a third an old life, is best learned by practice. A ledger, and had reprinted a few leaves of young man, who has been employed six each at random; whereas, the main weeks in a merchant's counting-house to thing to be acquired is the form, which post the books, will better understand the the same transaction, the same receipt or method than if he were to transcribe all payment, assumes in passing from the the quarto volumes of Wicks, and Jones, cash-book to the ledger, and so forth. and Boardman. In the work before us, No tradesman, no man of letters, no the different models of books are not lady, previously ignorant of book-keepconnected, so that the art of transferring ing, could from this system derive inentries from one book to another cannot formation enough to undertake a set of be learned from it. It seems as if the books in a correct and intelligible manpublisher had obtained from one mershant an old waste-book, from another ner. |