of fending the money in fpecie to B, he applies to Č, another merchant at Amfterdam, to whom D, a fourth person, refiding in London, is indebted to an equal amount; A pays to C the money in queftion, and receives from him a bill directed to D to pay the amount to B, or to any one appointed by him, who fends it to his correfpondent B, with an order that the money be paid to him by D.

BUT it frequently happens, that only three perfons are concerned, as where A, refiding at Amfterdam, and wifhing to remit money to B at London, for goods bought of him, and having C, a debtor alfo at London, addresses his bill to the latter, defiring him to pay the fum mentioned to B, or to his order, to whom he then fends it by letter.

OR if I be at Exeter, and intending to go Beawes, to London, and wanting money, I may take 450. it up of a friend at Exeter, and give him bills drawn on myself, payable to whomfoever he fhall appoint in London.

130.

Mod. 29.

THERE may also be only two parties con- 1 Salk. cerned in the formation of a bill, as where the perfon making it defires another to pay to himself or to his order.

Per Holt.

A BILL OF EXCHANGE therefore may Bill of Exbe defined, to be an open letter of requeft, ad- change, dreffed by one perfon to a fecond, defiring what. him to pay a fum of money to a third, or to any other to whom that third perfon fhall order it to be paid: or it may be payable to bearer.

THE perfon who makes the bill is called

the

Jfance.

the drawer; he to whom it is addreffed the drawee; and if he undertake to pay the amount, he is then called the acceptor. The perfon to whom it is ordered to be paid is called the payee, and if he appoint another to receive the money, that other is called the indorfee, as the payee is with refpect to him the indorfer; and any one who happens for the time to be in poffefhon of the hill, is called the holder of it.

THE time at which the payment is limited to be made is various, according to the cir cumftances of the parties, and the distance of their respective refidences. Sometimes the money is payable at fight, fometimes at so many days after fight; at other times, at a certain diftance from the date. Ufance is the time of one, two, or three months after the date of the bill, according to the custom of the places between which the exchanges run. Double or treble ufance, is double or treble the ufual time, and half ufance is half the time.

USANCE between London and any part of France, is thirty days after date.

BETWEEN London and the following places,--Hamburgh, Amfterdam, Rotterdam, Middleburg, Antwerp, Brabant, Zealand, and Flanders, is one calendar month after the date of the bill.

BETWEEN London and Spain and Portugal, two calendar months.

BETWEEN London and Genoa, Leghorn, Milan, Venice, and Rome, three calendar months.

THE ufance of Amfterdam, on Italy, Spain and Portugal, is two months.

ON

ON France, Flanders, Brabant, and on any place in Holland or Zealand, is one month."

ON Frankfort, Nuremberg, Vienna, and other places in Germany, on Hamburg and Breflau, fourteen days after fight, two ufance twenty-eight days, and half ufance feven.

HALF ufance, when the ufance is one month, fhall contain fifteen days, notwithftanding the inequality in the length of the months.

WHERE the time, after the expiration of which a bill is made payable, is limited by months, it must be computed by calendar, not lunar months: Thus, on a bill dated the first of January, and payable at one month after date, the month expires on the firft of Feb

ruary.

ON this account it is faid in fome books, that where the bill is dated the laft day of a month, fome difficulty may arife from the manner in which that laft day is expreffed, on account of the inequality in the length of the months: Thus in cafes of bills payable one month after date, if the date be fimply the last day, and the number of the day be not expreffed, it is faid the month expires the laft day of the fucceeding month; as if it bear date the last day of February, the time does not expire till the 31ft of March; but if the number of the day be expreffed, the month expires on the day correfponding in number to the date as if the date be the 28th of February, the time expires on the 28th of March. On the fame principle it would B 2 feem

feem, where the date is the 31st of March, the time will not expire till the firft of May, but where it is the last day of March, it expires the goth of April.

BUT this difficulty can hardly ever occur in practice, as it is apprehended the inftances of bills dated the last day of a month are very rare; and where one month is longer than the fucceeding one, it is a rule not to go, in the computation, into a third: Thus, on a bill dated the 28th, 29th, 30th, or 31st of January, and payable one month after date, the time expires on the 28th of February in common years, and in the three latter cafes, in leap year, on the 29th.

THE general rule of law is, that when computation is to be made from an act done, the day in which the act is done must be included; because the law, unless to prevent mifchief or inconvenience, admitting no fraction of a day, the act relates to the first moment of the day, and is confidered as done then. But when the computation is to be from the day itself, the natural conftruction of the words imports that the day must be excluded: thus where a leafe is made to commence from the day of the date, the day is excluded, and it begins the next day, but if it be to commence from the making, the day is included.-With refpect to bills of exchange, however, the cafe is different: The cuftom of merchants, which makes part of the law of the land, being, that where a bill is payable at fo many days after fight, or from the date, the day of prefentment

or

or of the date is excluded. Thus where a bill, payable ten days after fight, is presented on the first day of a month, the ten days expire on the eleventh; where it is dated the firft, and payable twenty days after date, these expire on the twenty-first. Where there is no date, and the payment is directed to be made fo many days after date, the date is taken to be the day on which it iffued.

THE vernal equinox, as the year was recti- Old and New fied by Julius Cefar, happened to fall, in the Style. year 325, on the 21ft of March: But from caufes which it is foreign to the purpose of this treatise to explain, in 1582, the equinox having changed from the 21ft to the 11th of March, Pope Gregory XIII. ordered ten days to be taken out of the calendar, and the 11th day of March to be reckoned as the 21ft. This edict was generally obeyed by the nations who acknowledged his authority, but most of the Proteftant countries continued the former method of reckoning their time, and from hence arose the different modes of computation, which now obtain in Europe under the denominations of Old and New Style. Since the days of Gregory, the equinox has receded one day, fo that there are eleven days of difference between the Old and New Style; or, in other words, the first day of any month according to the old ftyle, is the twelfth according to the new.

OLD Style now prevails in Mufcovy, Denmark, Holstein, Hamburg, Utrecht, Gueldres,

Eaft