^{page 120 note *} The first charter is dated, Westminster, 22 June, 1720; and the Corporation is therein styled “The Royal Exchange Assurance, for insuring Ships and Goods at Sea or going to Sea, and for Lending Money upon Bottomry.” The second charter hears date, Westminster, 29 April, 1721, and incorporates the persons in the first charter to be a Corporation for the Assurance of any Life or Lives, and against Casualties and Accidents by Fire, by the name of The Royal Exchange Assurance of Houses and Goods from Fire. (Vide Act 33 George III., c. 14.) Application is intended to be made to the Parliament of 1854 to consolidate the capitals under the two charters (vide Daily Papers, Dec, 1853).

^{page 121 note †} La Richesse de la Hollande: 2 volumes quarto. Published nominally “à Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie”; but really at Amsterdam, 1778 Google Scholar. There is also a small octavo edition of same year, in 5 volumes; and a Dutch translation, Leyden, 4 vols. 8vo. To the question, “who was the author?” an answer requires consideration. On consulting Barbier's vast labours in the cause of anonyms and pseudonyms, the information (?) obtained is worse than unsatisfactory, as may be imagined from this transcript, viz.:— “La Richesse de la Hollande (par Mich, ou Migt). Londres, 1778. 2 vols, in 8 Google Scholar. Noun. édit., revue et augment, (par El. Luzac et Bernard.) Londres (Hollande), 1778. 5 vols. in 12 Google Scholar.” Who Mich (or Migt) was, Barbier does not inform us; but the general opinion on the authorship of the work has been, that it should be ascribed to the Dutch jurist and philosopher Elie Luzac, nephew of the publicist who edited the Gazette de Leyde. The biographical notices of the Luzacs inserted in the Biographie Universelle are by Marron. These notices were reprinted separately in 1820, as a mark of their author's friendship to the family. Speaking of Elie Luzac, he says—“La Richesse de la Hollande parut d'abord en français, en 2 vols., in 8vo.; 1778”Google Scholar (this is a mistake for 4to). “ L'auteur en soigna lui-même la traduction hollandaise, et l'enrichit de plusicurs améliorations importantes. Leyde, 1780. 4 vols. in 8vo. C'est un histoire du commerce hollandais, où la théorie et la pratique sont également lumineuses. Un livre d'Accarias de Sérionne , imprimé à Amsterdam, 1765, 3 vols. in 12 Google Scholar, sous le titre de Commerce de la Hollande, a servi de base à celui de Luzac, qui jugea que cette production laissait trop à desirer.”

Marron states that he was indebted for the information respecting Elie Luzac to the biography in the Magasin Encyclopédique for the month of August, 1813, written by Professor Henri Constantin Cras, of Amsterdam.

I have placed these details before the reader, as Mr. McCulloch mentions, in his Literature of Political Economy, that the work La Richesse de la Hollande, is, as well as Le Commerce de la Hollande (above cited), and a work entitled Les Intérêts des Nations de l'Europe dévelopés relativement au Commerce, by “Acarias de Serionne, a French littérateur, who died at Vienna in 1792, at a very advanced age.” McCulloch was acquainted with Marron's views as to Elie Luzac being the author of La Richesse de la Hollande, but adds, that he had been assured by an eminent Dutch economist that this is an error, which most probably originated in the circumstance of Luzac having translated the work, to which he made considerable additions, into Dutch, and published it under the title of Hollands Rykdom. 4 vols. 8vo, at Leyden. in 1780 Google Scholar.

The writer of the article on Luzac in the Dictionnaire de l'Economie Politique (Paris, 1853)Google Scholar dissents from this view, and says ( vide volume ii., p. 610 Google Scholar) that the work La Richesse de la Hollande is erroneously attributed to De Serionne, and is really by Elie Luzac. The balance of opinion, up to the present time, is certainly in favour of the latter.

^{page 122 note *} The rates of premium are as follow :—

For the Sound and Norway, must be paid, if the voyage be made in summer—i.e., from the 1st April to the 1st November—2½ per cent.; ditto, for the winter season—i.e., from the 1st November to the 1st April—3½ per cent.

For Bergen in Norway, Drontheim and Stavanger—in summer, 3 per cent.; ditto in winter, 3½ per cent.

For Muscovy, outward bound, 3½ per cent.; for homeward bound, or return, 4 per cent.

For Greenland and Spitzbergen, 3 per cent.

For Hamburg, 2 per cent.

For Emden and Bremen, 1½ per cent.

For Scotland, Newcastle, and Hull, and their neighbourhoods, 2½ per cent.

For the Thames, 2½ per cent.

For Plymouth to “La Pointe de l'Angleterre” (query: Land's End ?) inclusive, 3 per cent.

For Ireland and its neighbourhood, 5 per cent.

For Nantes, La Rochelle, and the neighbourhood, 4½ per cent.

For Bordeaux, 5 per cent.

For Bayonne and St. Jean-de-Luz, 5½ per cent.

For Saint Malo, 3½ per cent.

For Caen, Havre, and Rouen, 3 per cent.

For Dieppe and Calais, 2½ per cent.

The premium and assurance (“La prime et l'assurance.” Query: misprint for “La prime d'assurance”?) are the same for the return voyage from these different places to the Provinces (of Holland), provided that the vessels or goods have been duly reported, and in the manner laid down in the preceding regulation.

Vessels or merchandise going to Toulon, Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, to be insured at a premium of 10 per cent.

For Venice, the premium to be 13 per cent.

In the next statute, notice is given that the surrounding neighbouring places of the Channel (in de Straat) are not included in those above mentioned, and that the Company is not bound to insure except for the localities above specified.

All other vessels or goods sent towards the west, to the more distant capes, cannot be insured beyond the Land's End (query: ut sup.) of England, and the premium to be 3 per cent.

If the voyage or transport be toward the Baltic, and for places at a greater distance than those above designated, insurance will be made to the Sound inclusive, and the premium will be 2½ per cent.

In the same manner, one can insure as far as the Cape of Hitland (?) vessels and merchandise forwarded to the north, at a premium of 3 per cent.

As this plan was conceived in time of war, and as the Dunkirkers then infested the sea with their piracies, one half per cent, extra is granted to the Company for three years upon the premiums above quoted, and 1 per cent, for the places in the Channel before designated in the project, in order to reimburse it in some degree for the losses which it may undergo, and the great expenses it will have to sustain.

^{page 125 note *} The republic was still in the height of the war with Spain; and the celebrated Peter Hein had in the preceding year (1628) captured from the Spaniards the fleet which, on account of the amount of treasure which it carried, was called the silver fleet (de zilvere vloot). E. L.

^{page 127 note *} By an Act passed in Her present Majesty's reign, this Corporation has now the shorter name of “The London Assurance.” The original style of the Corporation as above given, passed, in a similar way to that of the Royal Exchange Assurance (vide Note, ante), into that of the second style above named, by supplementary charter.

^{page 129 note *} The reader is presumed to be acquainted with the peculiar features in the history of the times when these subscription lists, and those of countless other projects, were formed, and engrossed the attention and cupidity not only of the trading classes, but of kings, nobles, clergy, and even of the fair sex, who had their’ change hours in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. In the latter city there seem to have been almost as many insurance projects as in London. The book entitled Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, &c. &c., zynde een Verzameling van alle de Condition en Projecten van de opgeregte Compagnien van Assurantie, Navigatie, &c. &c. &c. (1720, folio), contains particulars illustrated by highly satirical plates, designed in a way that a Hogarth would be proud of, and in one of which (by the celebrated engraver Picart) the various insurance plans figure with others in a well-composed allegory. The style of thought induced by the period of the rénaissance, and perpetuated in the days of the Charles's and of Louis Quartorze, made people less prosaic than now, even in their commercial ideas; and the Muse (rather a slip-shod one, it is true) was not unfreguently invoked to plead the cause of insurance projects. She sometimes, however, endeavoured to make her voice heard against them; as witness a piece of poetry in the London Journal of the 9th April, 1720.

^{page 129 note †} It appears in evidence, that King Charles the Second, in the 27th year of his reign, had by letters patent granted to Ralph Bucknall and Ralph Weyne, their executors, &c., power to erect a water-house in York House Garden, and to lay pipes into the river Thames, and convey the same for the use of the inhabitants and adjacent places, under the name of the Corporation above referred to, with legal power to purchase and retain land, &c.; and that Case Billingsley and Bradly entered into negotiations, in concert with Sir William Thompson and others, for the transfer of the rights of this Corporation, for a valuable consideration (£7,000), to the Forfeited Estates and Insurance project.