Note b — Chapter IX · [a] (continued 2)

There were three species of paper credit in the dealings of merchants: 1. General letters of credit, not directed to any one, which are not uncommon in the Levant: 2. Orders to pay money to a particular person: 3. Bills of exchange regularly negotiable. Boucher, t. ii. p. 621. Instances of the first are mentioned by Macpherson about 1200, p. 367. The second species was introduced by the Jews, about 1183 (Capmany, t. i. p. 297); but it may be doubtful whether the last stage of the progress was reached nearly so soon. An instrument in Rymer, however, of the year 1364 (t. vi. p. 495), mentions literæ cambitoriæ, which seem to have been negotiable bills; and by 1400 they were drawn in sets, and worded exactly as at present. Macpherson, p. 614, and Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 430, give from Capmany an actual precedent of a bill dated in 1404.