investigation, eliciting new ideas and acting the neologist, it lights the torch of information and penetrates the recesses of the temple of truth. The language of trade, enriching itself both by terms borrowed from many languages and from novel inventions and discoveries, becomes fluent and voluble in capacity, and fertile and copious in thought. And through these processes, Commerce elaborates the science of law. "Our laws," says Lord Bacon, "are mixed as our language; and as our language is so much the richer, the laws are the more complete."

Maxims and distinctions maintained in a rude and merely gregarious condition, differ extensively from those held by enlightened men under a liberal government. A narrow scope of comprehension or of action, and a paucity of laws are inseparable; while a broad sphere of civil authority and extensive trade possess numerous enactments with many questions for adjudication. Growing transactions with newly arising exigencies, call for adapting statutes; and every flourishing government, in augmenting its pursuits and population, expands the number with the scope of its enactments. Civil and criminal remedies and regulations accumulate and become complex as well in proportion to increasing opulence and population, as to the securities offered to the reputation, liberties, and lives of the people. Where man is active in eliciting every ability and exertion, every truth and knowledge, enactments preside with every check and restraint. Every progression in society evolves new duties, extends refined sentiment, and binds the conscience to respect new rights. Laws are based upon some well established principle of human nature or upon some principle or reason of policy, authority, or mercy, or of decency of balance, or harmony; and though it be maintained that, being simple, but few are required; yet, where mature civilization with varied avocations and copious truths prevail, statutes and authorities will be abundant. Decisions and court opinions being plainly conclusive, it is generally admitted that all laws are founded upon common sense. Yet what is common sense but a judicious application of ascertained principles to things as they are? A populous commercial community is a fertile field prolific in ascertained principles. Its intelligent sovereignty hovers over a ramification of human affairs, which baffles isolated considerations while it guards an intricate collection of interests. Laws and decisions are so numerous that variety may be taken for confusion of enactments; and compli-. cated, for contradictory cases. Hence arise the nice and subtle distinctions so characteristic of the law. A single and apparently trivial fact may qual ify, restrain, or enlarge an established rule. Hence, also flows that necessity for perpetual activity of judicial tribunals; and for those multiplying reports of decided cases, which render the law so emphatically an accumulating

science.

With trade appear distinct authorities and rules as maritime and commercial remedies. Courts of admirality, guarding rights springing from marine contracts or services, afford their authority; and, having exclusive civil and criminal jurisdiction, their sphere is broad while their "process sweeps the seas." The Law Merchant or Lex Mercatoria, as a body of usages, is both intricate and vast. Exclusively of currency, credit, and solvency; also exclusively of surety, stocks, trusts, and revenue; matters relating to exchange, shipping, insurance, and the many forms and customs touching the various mercantile contracts show the extent of trade's influence. Questions continually arise which involve interests of few, and upon circumstances immediately before one; with others involving interests of va

riously employed thousands, and they scattered over a broad domain. Records of law receive voluminous acquisitions from matters relating directly to Commerce; and the law merchant affords a large proportion of reported

cases.

Commerce influences law by fostering national peace. Cotton bales or cannon balls affect nations; as governments, in truth, in their intercourse with one another, know but the two mediums of war and Commerce. Under the benign influences of Commerce, antiquated distinctions break away, local animosities subside; and, though mountains or seas interpose between nations, less enmity prevails with trade, and more reciprocal goodwill. Interests of trade are links of intercourse not easily sundered; they hold the anchors of safety and security, and preserve the archives of science. Interchanges of courtesies and commodities, at home and abroad, add strength to standard authority. Treaties of amity and Commerce resist inveterate spirits of aggression and conflict. During the reign of war and rage of contending arms, Commerce is fettered, and the laws are stifled and mute. Then appear lust, discord, ferocity and carnage; then turbulent passion, belligerent and sanguinary struggles, with the havoc of the sword, usurp the places of peaceful pursuits, and of law and order. Tranquillity of government, and the reign of peace regaining prevalence, agriculture unmolested, presents her cornucopia; and Commerce pursues her march with safety and profit. Law sits, serenely, decreeing judgments; and justice is dispensed to all. Commerce, while encouraging pacific influences, rests on the sword, which prevents destruction of shipping and desolation of coast. Navies, established on enterprises in commercial navigation, guard prosperity, in view of aggression, and maintain vigilant readiness and power for war-the truest safeguards of peace.

Early laws, corresponding with earliest pursuits, were proclaimed by the Divine Legislator. The Decalogue, so plain and so simple, yet so comprehensive, comprises an ample code for the regulation of a rural people, living in a simple state of nature. The early Hebrews were eminently geoponical and pastoral. Society's advancement calls for other and more numerous enactments. When the tables of the laws were handed to Moses, additional laws to those already decreed, were required and bestowed. Maxims and enactments, illustrative and additional, appear with progress of society, as recorded in the sacred volume; and the same observation applies to the primitive Saxons, their brethren on the continent, and the other nations of the earth. Agricultural and military combinations are less intricate than manufacturing and commercial communities; while, where all these are blended in one collection, the laws become necessarily voluminous. Modern constitutions, like ancient systems, framed for the preservation of liberty, consist of many parts. Senates, popular assemblies, courts of justice, and magistrates of different orders, are blended to balance each other, while they exercise, sustain or check executive power. judges, jurists and jurors, are delegated to frame, enact, elucidate and apply Publicists, legislators, with the laws. The complex machinery of government is kept in active operation; freedom and domestic tranquillity are maintained; the common defense and general welfare provided for; and justice and equity preserved and dispensed. Here appear, also, occasions for the development of those influences and features most prominent in distinguishing a nation.

Without alluding to other systems, we will observe the two prominent ones that now sway the destinies of Christendom. We learn, says a

writer,* the art of war from Rome, and maritime affairs from the English. The influence of Commerce appears conspicuously in the varied operations of the Roman and British jurisprudence. The Roman system progressed to a copious depository of legal science. Rome's distinguishing policy, however, was wAR; and her intercourse proceeded directly from forces of her arms. Thus we see the iron cohorts and military sway preponderating, yet, the gaining, in the subduement of other countries, many influences flowing from trade. Commercial Greece captivated her savage conqueror, and introduced her arts among the Romans; while, with extended dominions in the east, Rome's taste for foreign varieties became a passion, and, exacting pay for subjugation, she soon possessed every article that was expensive or luxurious. She deduced laws, through the Greeks, from Crete and Tyre; formed a basis of intercourse and obligation; became mistress of the seas: and acquired the principles which have placed her on an endurable pedestal in the temple of time. Yet, despising and scorning traffic, her polity has never diminished its ardor and aptitude for the shield, nor departed from tameness and timidity in trade. Her literature portrays much of battles; her chief writers and orators were eminent in soldiery. The Roman forum was filled, not by a crowd of mechanics nor mariners, but by warriors; and the imperial system received its meditations from the field of Mars. Without aggression and conquest, therefore, it appears oppugnant and callous, because, in barter it is restrictive and rigid. Catering to a taste to subdue the world, Imperial Rome has continued to throw a sway, and infuse a love of arbitrary rule and of war, over Europe, long after her pristine grandeur departed. The most renowned in European science resorted to the fountain of imperial jurisprudence. Its jurists were eminently learned. A religious order, pledged to gravity and austerity of character, with ecclesiastical institutions and the most potent of polemical establishments, combined to sustain and perpetuate the Roman polity; while itself, fixed and affluent, terse yet copious, invaded the judicial systems of Europe, with an influence scarcely less than that exercised over the European dialects and literature, by the Roman tongue. But, with the revolutions and changes of centuries, the more enlightened nations have, by varied courses, transcended free authority of Rome. In modern times, animosity and war among the nations, have diminished, and the principles of the great Teacher of Peace have had greater attractions; the virtues of valor and knowledge of carnage have been less sought; the arm of oppression and the usurper's sword have been less lauded. Subduing conquest, less rigorous against the rights of common humanity, has been, in a measure, superseded by affable exchange. Law has been varied to suit the genius of pacific intercourse and traffic. The spirit of Commerce, alienated from tyranny, exclusiveness, and the majesty of imperial rule, has liberalized the world. Intelligence, no longer locked in the cloister and castle, has been spread broadcast among the people. Superstition has been shorn of its legions. Novel and valuable inventions have appeared; while elevating views have advanced.

Interchange of commodities and intercourse with other countries, augmented the power and enlarged the ideas of the English. Advancing in trade and science, and placed in novel positions, they looked upon the Roman system as too contracted in traffic. In their social relations, in their pursuits, in their literature and science, were conspicuous variations;

• Von Muller's Univ. History,

and Rome began to appear as a relic of the past. When the invention of printing, awakened by commercial spirit, commenced to diffuse learning; when the progress of religious information began to be universally disseminated; when trade and navigation were pursued to an amazing extent by the use of the compass; the minds of men, thus enlightened by science, and enlarged by observation and travel, began to entertain a more just opinion of the dignity and rights of mankind.*

The thirteenth century shows the British character to have been molding. Then, out of several races, a distinctive people was rising. The House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies that now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. The sailors who manned the barks of the Cinque Ports, first made the flag of England conspicuous on the seas; and the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Commerce continued to advance; its scope and energy verged onward, throwing out and establishing theories, and thrilling its way in wider and wider circles. Generation ensued generation, with surprising additions to traffic: and century followed century, with wonderful augmentations of shipping. Plucked from the untraversed waters of the Western Ocean was a hemisphere which attracted the attention of the maritime States across the Atlantic. The policy of the common law being encouragement to trade-England sought with eagerness this new arena for her Commerce. Efforts were succeeded by successes, and commercial enterprises were, for a long time, conceived and consummated with a single view to British interests. Sturdy sinews of America were exerted to elevate the parent country, whose colonial powers, in every direction, were affluent channels of grandeur. Similar courses continuing, the British empire became pre-eminent in commercial importance, and not only the sovereign of the seas, but the wonder of the world. The learned Blackstone conceived, at this period, the plan of his renowned commentaries. Locke had already analyzed the human mind, and Newton, investigated the laws of nature. Though secluded geographically from the rest of the world, the British became commercially ubiquitous; and the sun ceased to set on their dominions. The Commerce and common law of the English, buoyant with science and human rights, arrived together at supremacy.

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Long continued prevalence of trade exhibited its palpable traces and footprints. Did not rudeness and barbarity disappear before it? Did it not restrain the exercise of the instruments of military prowess? Were not feudal restraints softened much earlier, and much more effectually for its benefit than for any other consideration? Did it not penetrate the main arteries of the body politic? "Formerly," said Lord Mansfield, we were not that great commercial nation we are at present; nor formerly were merchants and manufacturers members of parliament, as at present. The case is now very different. Both merchants and manufacturers are, with great propriety, elected members of the lower house. Commerce having thus got into the legislative body of the kingdom, privilege must be done away.

Any exemption to particular men, or to particular ranks of men, is, in a free and commercial country, a solecism of the grossest nature." The sanguine genius of Commerce differed with Rome, whose course,

Commentaries on Law of England, B. iv. p. 434. +McCaulay's England, Harper's ed., Vol. i. p. 325. In the House of Peers, 1770,

when unobservant of military armor and martial scenes, became oscitant and drowsy. Like their system of law, the active principles of religion and liberty espoused by the English, were plainly distinguished from Roman tenets. Translations of the Scriptures, the compilation of the book of Common Prayer, with other means of extensive education, enlarged the intellect of England, infused a taste for knowledge, and led to a flourishing literary era. In the discovery and execution of wise plans to facilitate their progress, the British stepped forth unrivalled by any nation among mankind. Shifting the scenes on the stage of time with energy and force, they presented a grand and cheering exhibition to the survey of the world. The common law, commencing at an early period, and promoted by customs and usages gathered during successive invasions, gradually advanced with progressing enlightenment. Flexible and plastic, it was easily matured and molded by opinions and pursuits. Well adapted to conditions and circumstances, it was inwoven with the favor of prevailing sentiment. Eminent judges avoided or became loth to quote imperial precepts. The Roman law grew more and more into discredit, as the common law operated" as the wheel to the car of Commerce." The age of general intercourse and exchange now dawns. Thought is free. Biblical theology wins attention; discipline in logic and philosophy advance; instruction hurls out ignorance; liberty flashes upon the view; serfdom diminishes; ideas of human rights are disseminated; London, the city of ships, looms up to the wondering gaze; Britannia rules the waves; the world awakes to a knowledge of freedom. The common law fosters trade and a rapid interchange of commodities; the civil law is restrictive of both. The civil law is replete with a by-gone order of things, while the common law is full of freshness and life. The one is of the spirit of the past; the other, of the genius of the present and future. The one, of a nature of quietude and repose; the other, of a progressive and reforming nature.

Commerce found full amplitude in the New World. Earliest colonists, migrating from commercial nations, were accompanied by characteristics of a commercial people, and engaged extensively, from the time of their settlement, in commercial pursuits. European surprise was soon awakened by the maritime plans and intrepidity of the colonists. England looked amazed at the hardy industry of this recent people. Eloquent tributes were elicited by their stalwort energy and daring. In an effort to restrain colonial prosperity, as they clipped the wings of the Dutch navigators, the British met resistance eventuating in American independence. Conspicuously in the celebrated Declaration, appeared the signature of the president of the continental congress-a distinguished commercial character. Want of power

to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, was one of the leading defects of the confederation, and, probably, as much as any one cause, conduced to the establishment of the constitution.* The immortal Henry urged that Commerce be unfettered, and portrayed the advantages of swift-winged trade. While many commercial men contributed munificently to sacred and literary institutions, the nearest universal freedom soon spread over the most commercial regions of the land; thus diminishing the hereditary evil of slavery.

In preferring the common law, upon which to predicate a national polity, the Americans deviated from that love for the heroic possessed by the

* Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the U. S.