A bill drawn in England about the year 1500 bears less resemblance to
the form now used, and instead of commencing and ending with the devout
expressions of the Italian bill, it has the formal words, "Be it known
to all M'e y't I," etc., and "hereto I bynde me myn executours and all
my Goodis, wheresoever they may be founde, in Wytnesse whereof I have
written and sealyed this Byll, the X Day of," etc. It was made payable
to a person named, "or to the Bringer of this Byll."
Bills of exchange were first used only for the benefit of a specified
payee, but it was not long before the element of negotiability was
added to foreign bills, which, thus perfected, became at once the
indispensable instruments of commerce which they now are. The
negotiability of inland bills and of promissory notes was not recognized
till long afterwards. In England, inland bills were not used in any form
till about the middle of the seventeenth century; and Lord Holt, in a
case reported half a century later, said he remembered the time when
actions upon inland bills first began. Indeed, the earliest case in
which foreign bills of exchange are mentioned in the English Reports is
as late as the first year of the reign of James I., though they appear
to have been known to the courts in the preceding reign of Elizabeth,
for there are extant precedents of declarations upon them of that
period.
Pages:
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325