Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/344

 330 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S ble only to merchants, which it is necessary to prove. ^ In 1699 Treby, C. J., said that Bills of Exchange at first ex- tended only to merchant strangers trading with English merchants ; afterwards to inland Bills between merchants trading with one another in England; and lastly to all persons whether traders or not; and that there was now no need to allege and prove the custom,^ The process was assisted, after the Revolution, by the greater freedom allowed to foreign trade. In the 16th and 17th centuries foreign trade was in the hands of companies incorporated by the crown with exclusive rights to trade. ^ The validity of such grants was upheld, in 1684, in the East India Company v. Sandys. * It is clear that such an organiza- tion of trade will tend to the settlement of disputes by the arbitration of the governing body of the company. But, in 1693, trade had been to a large extent freed by a resolution of Parliament, " that it is the right of all Englishmen to trade to the East Indies, or any part of the world, unless prohibited by Act of Parliament." ^ It was a natural, though perhaps an indirect result, of the Great Rebellion and the Revolution that the ordinary courts should thus absorb juris- diction over mercantile cases. The fact that the Law Mer- chant was not English law, but jus gentium, had been used to prove that the crown had such large powers over trade, that it could impose impositions, or create a monopoly. ® It was clear that the Law Merchant must be administered in the ' Oaste V. Taylor (1613) Cro. Jac. 306, the custom of the merchants is fully set out. Similarly in Woodward v. Rowe (1669) 2 Keb. 105. In Witherley v. Sarsfield, Shower 127 (1689) Holt said that the act of drawing a bill made a man a trader for this purpose. change, xlv-xlvii, as to the result of this upon the English law of Bills of Exchange. • Gross, Gild Merchant, i 140-156; Hall, Customs Revenue, i 50-54; L. Q. R. xvi 54. (1687) 3 Mod. Rep. 126, 128. ' Newcastle Merchant Adventurers (Surtees Soc.) i xli-xliv. • This is the argument of Davies' work upon impositions, chap. vi. " Forasmuch as the general law of nations which is and ought to be law in all Kingdoms, and the Law Merchant which is also a branch of that law, and likewise the Imperiall or Roman law, have ever been admitted by the kings and people of England in causes concerning Merchants and Merchandize. . . . Why should not this question of Im-
 * Bromwich v. Lloyd 2 Lut. 1582, 1585. Cp. Chalmers, Bills of Ex-
 * 10 S. T. 371. Cp. Company of Merchant Adventurers v. Rebow