Defence of Usury [14]
such opinion, he should omit to do so, the blame will lie, not on my industry, but on his negligence. These, it may be said, should they even be secure and effectual evasions, are still but evasions, and, if chargeable upon the law at all, are chargeable not as inconsistencies but as oversights. Be it so. Setting these aside, then, as expedients practised or practicable, only behind its back, I will beg leave to remind you of two others, practised from the day of its birth, under its protection and before its face. The first I shall mention is pawnbroking. In this case there is the less pretence for more than ordinary interest, inasmuch as the security is, in this case, not only equal to, but better than, what it can be in any other: to wit, the present possession of a moveable thing, of easy sale, on which the creditor has the power, and certainly does not want the inclination, to set such price as is most for his advantage. If there be a case in which the allowing of such extraordinary interest is attended with more danger than another, it must be this: which is so particularly adapted to the situation of the lowest poor, that is, of those who, on the score of indigence or simplicity, or both, are most open to imposition. This trade however the law, by regulating, avowedly protects. What the rate of interest is, which it allows to be taken in this way, I can not take upon me to remember: but I am much deceived, if it amounts to less than 12 per cent in the year, and I believe it amounts to a good deal more. Whether it were 12 per cent or 1200, I believe would make in practice but little difference. What commission is in the business of drawing and re-drawing, warehouse-room is, in that of pawnbroking. Whatever limits then are set to the profits of this trade, are set, I take it, not by the vigilancy of the law, but, as in the case of other trades, by the competition amongst the traders. Of the other regulations contained in the acts relative to this subject, I recollect no reason to doubt the use. The other instance is that of bottomry and respondentia: for the two transactions, being so nearly related, may be spoken of together. Bottomry is the usury of pawnbroking: respondentia is usury at large, but combined in a manner with insurance, and employed in the assistance of a trade carried on by sea. If any species of usury is to be condemned, I see not on what grounds this particular species can be screened from the condemnation. "Oh but" (says Sir William Blackstone, or any body else who takes upon himself the task of finding a reason for the law) "this is a maritime country, and the trade, which it carries on by sea, is the great bulwark of its defence." It is not necessary I should here enquire, whether that branch, which, as Dr Smith has shewn, is, in every view but the mere one of defence, less beneficial to a nation, than two others out of the four branches which comprehend all trade, has any claim to be preferred to them in this or any other way. I admit, that the liberty which this branch of trade enjoys, is no more than what it is perfectly right it should enjoy. What I want to know is, what there is in the class of men, embarked in this trade, that should render beneficial to them, a liberty, which would be ruinous to every body else. Is it that sea adventures have less hazard on them than land adventures? or that the sea teaches those, who have to deal with it, a degree of forecast and rejection which has been denied to land men? It were easy enough to give farther and farther extension to this charge of inconsistency, by bringing under it the liberty given to insurance in all its branches, to the purchase and sale of annuities, and of post-obits, in a word to all cases where a man is permitted to take upon himself an unlimited degree of risk, receiving for so doing an unlimited compensation. Indeed I know not where the want of instances would stop me: for in what part of the magazine of events, about which human transactions are conversant, is certainty to be found? But to this head of argument,