BILLS, NOTES, AND CHEQUES.

CHAPTER I.

LAW MERCHANT.

$1. LAW MERCHANT AND THE COMMON LAW: General THEORY.

book.

LAW merchant, lex mercatoria, is a term in use wherever the English language prevails, to designate certain branches of law imported at different times into England, Law merchant and matriculated there, from the Continent of an importation: use of the Europe, where they formed part of the modern term in this Roman or Civil law. We are concerned in this book with a branch which deals with the law of bills, notes, and cheques. This branch of the law merchant has retained throughout its life, to the present day, its essential characteristics, clearly marking it off from the common law, while other branches have differed so little from the common law or have become so far assimilated to it that the fact is all but forgotten that they are not of the common law stock. The result is that the term law merchant at the present time usually suggests the law of bills, notes, and cheques. That will be sufficient justification for the use of the term in this book.

Common law,

The common law, on the other hand, was a native of England, already venerable when the law merchant crossed the English Channel. Before that time the a native of England. common law had defined and settled the conception of contract for England.

The law merchant was no part of the law of England for generations after it had followed trade, in a private capacity, to