The law of fire and life insurance / by George Beaumont.

  • Beaumont, George Duckett Barber.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The law of fire and life insurance / by George Beaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    reader will find further information in the Intro^ duction” to the works of Park and Marshall (c*). (c) Some writers have shown either a zeal to affix the stamp of antiquity to the contract of insurance, or to give to such ancient nations as were celebrated for their commercial eminence, the further credit of this very useful invention of insurance. That the Rhodians, who were supreme in com- merce ten centuries before the Christian Era, were the in- ventors of this contract, is the opinion of some writers; no traces of the fact appear in any fragments of their laws in- corporated in the Roman codes; but, being without the com- plete body of the Rhodian law, the present age cannot give a negative to the opinion. Some passages are quoted from Livy which Emc:-rigon thinks show the existence of this spe- cies of contract among the Romans; but as Millar (“ on insurances’^) has observed, there is no mention of any pre- mium being paid for the indemnity mentioned in these pas- sages, which resolve themselves into a statement that a risk of transport of merchandize for the use of the Roman govern- ment, was by that government taken upon themselves, as a liberal government in the cases mentioned were bound to do. (Livy lib. 23, c. 49. lb. 25, c. 3.) Suetonius, in the Life of Tiberius Claudius (c. 18,) mentions that the emperor offered “ certa lucra” to the corn merchants, and took the risk upon himself of transport of the cargoes. These bounties and indemnity as inducements to secure a supply of a neces- sary commodity in time of scarcity, are very natural. A pas- sage from Cicero’s Letters (lib. 2. 17.) is more applicable to a case of a bill of exchange than to insurance, the occasion spoken of being the payment of a sum of money by some expedient which should avoid the risk of transport of the cash. A passage in Ulpian, (Dig. 1. 1, tit. 45,) may have a like solution. Grotius and Bynkenshoek are opposed to the no- tion of insurance being known by the Romans. Coming to the modern States of Europe : the Jews of France are supposTckto be inventors of the contract at a time