vested; and if the ship is lost previous to its commencement, the freight insured may be recovered under the policy.

Whenever freight, covered by insurance, is valued in the policy at a certain sum, and goods sufficient to make but a small portion of the amount named are put on board the vessel, and the remainder of the goods are in readiness for shipment-if the vessel is lost previous to the commencement of the intended voyage, the whole freight valued in the policy may be recovered; and the interest of the owner in passage money, in case of a loss of the ship subsequent to the time when she was in readiness to receive her passengers, would be governed by the same rule. Where an insurance is effected upon the freight of a vessel which is chartered for an entire sum, to proceed from the port of New York to stop at several foreign ports, and return, and the vessel is lost at the commencement of the voyage, the owner would be entitled to the full amount of freight insured for the whole voyage; as the charter party gives an entirety to the contract, and the risk attaches on the whole freight, as soon as the voyage is begun; and it will make no difference whether the agreement to supply the cargo or pay freight is in writing or only verbal, as the liability of the insurer is the same. The charterer of a vessel during a certain period, has an insurable interest in the freight, since he is the only one interested in the vessel's earnings during that time: and the owner and charterer, have each of them an insurable interest in respect to the risks to which they are severally liable; and if the charterer makes an absolute unconditional agreement to pay freight, he is possessed of an insurable interest, in reference to all risks.

The rules necessary to be observed in describing the insured in the policy, are important to be understood; and this description should be sufficiently broad and comprehensive, to include all who can prove their interest in the property insured, and show that the policy was intended for their protection and benefit. The usual form of description is to mention the name of the person obtaining the policy, and state that the property is insured for himself, and all whom it may concern; and unless this general clause is inserted, no one besides the person whose name is expressed in the instrument, and his general partner, can avail themselves of the benefit of its provisions; and it must be expressly made to appear, that the policy was effected on behalf of the person claiming under it, for otherwise, although he has an interest corresponding with that described in the policy, it will not be covered. When the policy contains the general description before mentioned, it will enure to the benefit of all who effected it, and will protect the interest of those for whom it is intended, and who adopt it when made; and the adoption of the instrument by the party for whom it is intended, at any time before loss, and in many cases after, is sufficient, and is equivalent to an original order for insurance.

In the description of the subject matter which the policy is intended to cover, it is necessary that the thing insured, and in some instances the peculiar interest intended to be protected, should be expressed by words sufficiently clear and comprehensive, in the instrument itself; or that it should contain something which will point out the mode of ascertaining with certainty to what the contract is to be applied; and although the rules of justice will not permit any technical inaccuracy or innocent mistake to vitiate the policy and destroy its effect, still it is important that the instrument should express the intention of the parties with reasonable certainty. If the description designates the subject with tolerable certainty, and if from

the terms of the policy it could not have been the intention of the parties to refer it to any thing else, a mistake in the name of the vessel, or other property, will not affect the liability of the insurer. Where the marks upon bales of goods are incorrectly described in the policy, and it is shown to have been the intention of the parties to effect the insurance upon such goods, and their identity is clearly made out, the insured may recover upon the contract. The general description in a policy, goods, wares, and merchandise, is very comprehensive, and under it the insured will be entitled to claim compensation for loss of property of almost every nature. Specie and bullion will be included under this description, but not bank bills; and if it was the apparent intention to insure jewels, rings, &c., there is no substantial reason why they should not be covered and protected by this description. Policies are sometimes effected upon ship, or ships, to be afterwards declared, and other property may be insured in the same manner, and after effecting such an insurance, the insured cannot be compelled to declare his interest, but may refrain from so doing until after a loss has occurred, when he may declare the interest insured to be in the goods so lost; but if a condition is inserted in such policy, that the insured shall declare the property intended to be insured, as soon as he can receive information enabling him to do so, he must not delay communicating such information after it is derived, and his rights under the policy will be determined as soon as this declaration is made to the insurer.

When different shipments of goods are embraced in the description contained in the policy, the insured may apply it to either, if it is not made to appear that it was not the intention of the parties to protect the property claimed to be covered by the instrument; and whenever the policy is so drawn, as to give the insured a discretion in declaring the interest to be protected, his right to make his election cannot be altered, limited, or taken away, by any act of the insurer, for the contract is perfected when the policy is subscribed, and the declaration of interest is a mere exercise of power conferred by the instrument upon the insured.

When an insurance is intended to be effected upon profits and commission, it is the more usual and safe course, to describe them specifically, although this does not appear to be absolutely necessary; and where the intention of the parties is clear, an insurance effected on property in a ship is sufficient to cover the intererst of the master who is to receive a commission on the cargo.

An insurance upon the ship, comprehends the body of the ship, her tackle, furniture, and outfits; and the term outfits includes sails, cordage, provisions, armaments, and ammunition. Freight may be insured by the owner of the vessel, even on part of a voyage, without disclosing the remainder, although it was formerly considered otherwise. But a person who is not the owner of the ship, cannot insure the freight, without disclosing the particular interest out of which it arises; and where the owner of a vessel disposes of it, retaining his right to the freight she may make during one voyage, and insures his interest in such freight, he cannot recover upon the policy, unless it contains a particular description of his interest in the vessel, upon the ground that his interest to be protected is not strictly that of freight, which is defined to be the price of transportation paid by the owner of the goods to the owner of the vessel. Where a re-insurance is obtained, the same general rules apply as to the description of the former policy, and the interest insured, which must be defined and ascertained with certainty.

The contract for insurance must contain a stipulation for the premium, and the rate is always expressed in the policy, but as the underwriter is liable to loss, and entitled to a premium, only so far as the risk extends, it does not necessarily appear from the policy what amount will be effectually and absolutely insured, and accordingly it does not show what amount of premium will be eventually payable on the risk. It is a general rule, however, that the premium on the whole sum named in the policy is the amount considered due; and this will be presumed, unless from the particular circumstances of the case a different rule of construction is made to appear. The usual form of a policy contains a clause, by which the underwriter acknowledges himself to have received the premium, although this is by no means conclusive evidence that it has been paid, but it is inserted to preclude the necessity of proving its payment in case of loss, which would otherwise be rendered necessary to entitle the assured to recover.

When the policy is void without the fault of the assured, or by reason of its illegality, or where the risk does not commence, no premium can be recovered. It is indispensably necessary that a risk should be incurred, before the premium can become due, and it is in the power of the assured by placing none, or only a part of the property covered by the instrument, at risk, to annul the contract either in whole or in part; and this is an indulgence which the law allows to this species of contract, and it is considered an implied condition upon which it is entered into, it being often impossible to know at the time the policy is made, what quantity of goods may be ultimately placed at risk.

The rapid view which is here taken, for the purpose of pointing out the rules necessary to be observed, to give validity to a policy of marine insurance, and to vest in the assured every legal right which an instrument of this kind is intended to confer, is sufficient to impress upon the mind the importance of having the policy carefully and skilfully drawn-and as large sums are often involved in the determination of a single word, every sentence should be clear and comprehensive.

ART. VIII. THE STATE OF THE CURRENCY.

WE resume this subject with feelings and under circumstances very different from those which attended the writing of our former article. The apprehensions we then entertained have been more than realized. Indeed the first number of this magazine had scarcely made its appearance, before the accounts of the state of the money market in England were such as distinctly to warn us that the tide of temporary prosperity caused by borrowing money was turning. And since then the reflux has been going on with such a force and rapidity of current, as even we, who had always expected a good deal, did not anticipate. The rate of exchange has been such as to make a large exportation of specie unavoidable, and this, though not very long continued, has already had the effect which we stated that it would, of putting in jeopardy our whole system of convertible paper currency. The banks doing business through a large portion of the United States, have again suspended the payment of their obligations, and the money of the

greater part of the country has for the second time within three years become a paper medium relying for support solely upon public opinion.

Of the causes of this second suspension, the views are almost as various as the individuals who hold them. There are many who consider it as a necessary consequence of the attempt to resume specie payments last year, which they maintain to have been premature and injudicious. Others regard it as the effect of measures taken since that resumption, and having no necessary connexion with that event. One class of persons affirm that the relaxation of the protective system, by tempting to excessive and burdensome foreign importations which must be paid for with money, is at the bottom of the whole matter, while another see it in the capricious policy of the secretary of the treasury when distributing the surplus revenue. Then again the thorough-going political partisans make President Jackson or the Bank of the United States the rock of offence, according as their party predilections lead them to admire the one or to detest the other. One peculiarity in this great diversity of sentiment seems to us to be, that, contrary to the ordinary rule, there is some foundation in justice for each variety of it. A cool observer cannot avoid admitting, even upon a hasty glance at the several causes assigned, that they have each and every one of them had some operation upon events, although he may not be disposed to admit that they have precisely to the extent which the advocates of each would claim for their respective and favorite theory. It is difficult, in questions of this kind, to hit the taste of the public, which does not relish the degree of generalizing essential to explain the truth. It is the nature of man to seek a sharply-defined idea, in order that it may be fixed in the memory with convenience. But this process, when applied to a series of events brought about by so many different agents, is rarely possible, without some sacrifice of accuracy in judgment. Very seldom is it that any given effect can be affirmed to proceed from any single cause; most especially so when the passions of men, engaged in vehement contention with each other, are let in at one and the same moment, to give new and strange impulses to events, and to distort the medium through which those events are to be viewed and judged.

In the midst of all this, we are however arriving at one general conclusion, which may be of use in directing our future investigations; and that is, that the plan of joint stock banking, as practised at this time in the United States, without the presence of a regulating power of some kind or other to keep it from running into excess, is wholly unsafe, and the currency which it provides is not a sound currency. Thus much, the experience of the past may now surely authorize us to take for granted. But if we assume this, the questions which immediately present themselves, however difficult of solution, are not many in number nor hard to be understood. We must either introduce the power of regulation, which is essential to the system we have, in order to make it work beneficially, or we must revolutionize that system itself. Either some mode must be devised to keep paper money issued by banks convertible into gold or silver, or we must give it up and back to the hard money. This seems to be the exact nature of the issue now making in this country, upon the decision of which, much in futurity of good or evil must absolutely depend.

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We are not disposed at this time to go very largely into the discussion of past events. There is so much in them on all sides to regret, that we dislike to approach them more than we are obliged to. It is impossible to over

look the fact, however, that so long as a national bank was in existence, there never was any reasonable ground for complaining of the currency, and the moment that it has ceased to exist, complaint has regularly become loud and incessant; a national bank is then a remedy for this evil at least, and being such, it of course must be included among the alternatives from which it may hereafter be deemed proper to select. Of the probability of its adoption, we are not at present called to consider, neither are we conscious that that question has much to do with our purpose, which is to look over the whole field of view and observe what the remedies that can be supposed to be applicable to the present case really are, and which of them it would be the part of wise financiers to adopt.

And first, with respect to the propriety of a new national bank, it cannot be denied that there are reasonable causes for doubt whether it could again be made to act upon a banking system, so widely expanded as ours now is, without presupposing a concentration of capital, which, in the present circumstances of the United States, is hardly practicable, and which, if practicable, is not unattended with danger. The great difficulty of so large an amount of disposable capital seems to be, that it tempts to the undertaking of too much; we think that this has been made clearly manifest by the example of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, which, since it became a state institution, has unquestionably gone far to forfeit, among sober-minded and reflecting persons, the very high opinion which had been entertained of its management while under the national charter. We know very well that in saying this, we incur some hazard of involving ourselves in the contests of the day. But the first duty of writers upon subjects like these, is to express freely what they believe to be the truth without fear or favor, and it is in obedience to this dictate that we will proceed to give our reasons for the opinion we have advanced.

When the administration of General Jackson had carried the point with the people, of terminating the existence of the national bank, it ought to have been foreseen by those who advocated its continuance, that the currency would fall into disorder without it. We are aware that this was abundantly foretold by many leading politicians in opposition, but the conduct of the bank itself, in winding up, gives some color to the belief that it did not really entertain the apprehensions so freely thrown out by its advocates, and that these were, many of them, rather the heated offspring of political invective, than sober and rational conclusions from well-laid premises. Had the bank really foreseen and believed in the arrival of the crisis which was about to happen, we do not think it would ever have made the repayment of so great a share of its capital as was placed in the southern and southwestern offices, depend so much as it did upon the continuance in a sound state of the credit system. Nor yet would it have accepted of such terms as were imposed upon it by the state of Pennsylvania, as the consideration for a charter to be granted by her. Both these acts were predicated upon the supposition that a national bank was entirely unnecessary; the very position which had been all along maintained by the party friendly to the administration-and that the United States Bank, chartered by a state, would exercise the same control over the credit system, which it had done when chartered by congress. Had this proved true, the whole argument of the friends of a national institution would have been shown to be unsound, and the contest between General Jackson and the bank must have terminated favorably to the former, in the judgment of moderate men. The result has, however, left the