Bills of exchange and promissory notes are instruments
quite as indispensable to modern commerce and civilization; and when
the necessities of an enlarged commercial intercourse, some five or six
hundred years ago, first led to the use of paper as a representative
of money, it was in the form of bills of exchange. All the absolute
requirements of social life and of commerce among the ancient Greeks and
Romans were satisfied by the use of the precious metals as money, though
the want of new facilities and new instruments of commercial exchange
must have been constantly experienced. Cicero, writing to his friend
Atticus, when he was about to send his son to Athens, inquires whether
he can have credit upon Athens for what money his son may have occasion
for, or whether the young man must carry it with him in specie. Cicero
desired to accomplish what is now effected by a negotiable bill of
exchange; and if such instruments had been in use, he would have gone to
the forum and purchased a bill on Athens for the requisite amount. But
as it was, though he may possibly have found some one at Rome who had
money owing to him by some one at Athens, and may have arranged with
this Roman creditor that this debt should be paid to his son at Athens
by the debtor there, it is quite certain that no instrument answering to
our negotiable bill of exchange was used in the transaction.
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