Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/502

 488 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY mercantile enterprise, complicating law which otherwise might have been as simple as the Swedish ; ^ the growth of banking;^ the fact that the Jacobean and Caroline exac- tions were so long borne; the evidences of Bacon, Mun, and Clarendon ^ — all convince us of this. One result of that increase was that the mantle of Equity thrown by Ellesmere over the mortgagor was taken from him. Another was that debts, hitherto assignable by and to the Crown only, were made assignable by and to any one ; hence that development of the law as to bills of exchange (especially necessary to commercial intercourse when the exportation of the precious metals was prohibited) which had taken place in Spain, took place in England.'* Then, besides the minor courts of which I have spoken, means were proposed of recovering small debts and debts due from corporations.'^ Again, notwith- standing the jealousy of monopolies, inventors received patent rights, even if they did not come within the statute of James.® The Statute of Fraudulent Devises was fore- stalled; and even that of Frauds and Perjuries, suggested by Hale to Nottingham, brought in by him, enlarged and revised by Guildford and Jenkins, may well have been planned by the Committee of 1653.^ Lastly, bankruptcy acts protected the unfortunate and sent the dishonest to be tried by a jury; imprisonment for debt, though no doubt unnecessarily cruel, and bitterly attacked, particularly by prisoners, was well and successfully defended.^ The frequency of sales of confiscated land, the unwilling- »Whitelock, 430-32; 601. Car. ij. c. 3, § 2. » Bacon, "Advice to Sir G. Villiers" (1615-16): Mun, "Engl, treas- ure by foreign trade" (c. 1625): Clar. bk. 1. 60, 61): Stt. 1646, c. 65; 1649, c. 24 (Scobell [1658], pt. 2, pp. 23, 28): 6 Somers's Tracts, 187. But see Mayor, " Baker's ' Saint John's Coll., Cambr.' p. 383." •6 Somers's Tracts, 184, 187. 'Stt. 1650, c. 39; 1651, c. 2. & 4 W. & M. c. 14: and see Benjamin, "Contracts of Sale," bk. 1, pt. 2, c. 1 (where read 5 East, 17, and Wynne, " Jenkins," I, liij.) ; Gilbert, 171. •Statt. 1653, c. 13; 1654, c. 41: Jones, "The new ret. brev." p. 11; "The peace of justice" p. ».; "Judges judged," etc.; "The crie of bloud ; " " Every man's case," etc. : petition to Cromwell from the pris- oners in the Fleet against oppression [Brit. Mus. i»"- »■ i^ l • "Reasons
 * "Exam. legg. Angl." c. 14, § 39: Clar. "Life," 3, 7: St. 22 and 23
 * Breverton's Case, Dyer, 30 b.: RoUe, " Abr." (action sur case [V]
 * 6 Somers's Tracts, 186: St. 1654, c. 25. Cp. Stt. 29 Car. ii. c. 3; 3