156, 166 v. Ocean Ins. Co. i. 385 Whiton v. Old Colony Ins. Co. i. 522 Whitteridge v. Norris ii. 214, 276 xlix Whitney v. N. Y. Firem. Ins. Co. ii. 154, Williams v. Smith i. 210, 226, 403, 626; ii. 119, 128, 378 Whittingham v. Thornburgh i. 411, v. Vermont Ins. Co. ii. 473 516; ii. 541 v. Whiting i. 26 Whitwell v. Harrison ii. 60 v. Williams ii. 208 Wickes v. Caulk i. 142 William, The i. 343 Wiggin v. American Ins. Co. i. 55, 504; Williamson v. Brig Alphonso i. 604 v. Amory ii. 466 v. Innes i. 179 v. Price i. 538 ii. 29, 37 v. Tunno ii. 527 v. Boardman i. 109; ii. 37 v. Damrell v. Mercantile Ins. Co. i. 55 i. 522 i. 55, 295, Willis v. Cook Wightman v. Macadam ii. 461, 469 Wilson v. Ætna Ins. Co. ii. 481 v. Bank of Victoria ii. 256, 264 v. Genessee Mut. Ins. Co. i. 61, 571 Wilkie v. Geddes i. 374 ii. 510 Wilkinson v. Clay ii. 423 v. Herkimer Co. Mut. Ins. ii. 438, 500, Co. v. Johes ii. 92 v. Lindo ii. 417 v. Marryat i. 27 v. Wilson i. 215 v. Millar ii. 85, 247 Wilks v. Davis i. 323; ii. 484 v. Rankin i. 373 Willard v. M. & M. Ins. Co. ii. 114, v. Royal Exch. Ass. Co. i. 188, 162, 403 191, 251; ii. 151, 155 Willes v. Glover i. 409, 415, 463, 468, 491; ii. 545, 547 William and Emmeline, The i. 201, 209, 212, 215, 217, 219 v. Smith i. 555 i. 597 i. 26 William Hamilton, The i. 611 v. Reaston i. 45 i. 607 Wing v. Harvey ii. 419 ii. 527 v. Box of Bullion i. 604 ii. 418 Winn v. Col. Ins. ii. 83, 130, 134, 148 i. 91, 93, 434 ii. 35, 40, v. Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Cole i. 164 v. Delafield i. 499 d v. Holdiman i. 187; ii. 346, 529 Wood v. N. E. Mar. Ins. Co. i. 316, 543; | Wright v. Orient Ins. Co. i. 380 v. Pole i. 524 i. 359, 361 THE LAW OF MARINE INSURANCE. CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY, NATURE, PURPOSE, AND EFFECT OF INSURANCE. EMINENT writers on the Law of Insurance have sometimes ventured, not the assertion, but the conjecture, that insurance was known to the Romans, and possibly even to the Greeks. We have never seen any reason for this, conjecture. Mr. Duer prefaces his valuable treatise on this subject by an elaborate argument in favor of this hypothesis. But the whole argument amounts to this: First, their commerce was so extensive, and the perils of their navigation so great, as almost to require, and therefore to imply, the practice of insurance. Secondly, the emperors, who imported large cargoes of corn from Africa and elsewhere, to feed and quiet the hungry and tumultuous multitude that filled their great city, probably bore the loss when the cargoes, by reason of wreck or piracy, failed to arrive. Thirdly, the contracts of bottomry and respondentia were well known, in frequent use, and guided by full and minute legal provisions, under the titles "De nautico fœnore" and "De usuris." The first of these reasons has little or no force. Whatever may be our estimate of the value and effect of insurance, and whatever our belief that the existing commerce of Europe and America would not be practicable but for the safeguard of insurance, it is certainly unreasonable to assert that the very restricted commerce of those early ages could not have existed without it. Indeed the argument against the practice of insurance, on the ground that if that practice had prevailed the commerce of that vast empire would have been much larger, 1 A |