mself to pay"; or, in the words of an eminent English judge, "It is a
contract to protect men against uncertain events which in any wise may
be a disadvantage to them."

The contract securing this indemnity is called a policy, from the
Italian _polizza d' assicurazione_, or _di sicurta_, which signifies a
memorandum in writing, or bill of security. The sum paid for the
indemnity is called a premium, or price; the party taking upon himself
the risk being termed the underwriter, because his name is written at
the bottom of the policy, while the person protected by the instrument
is called the assured. Says one, "The premium paid by the latter and the
peril assumed by the former are two correlatives inseparable from each
other, and the union constitutes the essence of the contract."

Some writers, Mr. Babbage among others, use the words "assurance" and
"insurance" as having distinct meanings; but with all underwriters at
this day they are considered synonymous.

Insurance in the first instance was exclusively maritime, and great
efforts have been made to prove its antiquity. Some have endeavored, by
appeals to Livy, Suetonius, Ulpian, and Cicero, to show that insurance
was in use in ancient Rome, and that it was invented at Rhodes a
thousand years before the Christian era; while others claim that it
existed at Tyre, Carthage, Corinth, Athens, and Alexandria.

There is little doubt, however, that it was first practised by the
Lombards, and was introduced into England by a Lombard colony, which in
the thirteenth century settled in London, and controlled entirely the
foreign trade of the kingdom. After the great fire in London, in 1666,
the protection hitherto afforded by insurance to ships only was extended
to goods and houses; and insurance as a contract of indemnity was
subsequently extended to human life.

It is a singular fact that the subject of effecting insurance on lives
was largely and excitingly discussed on the continent of Europe before
it had attracted the slightest attention in England; yet at this day it
prevails throughout Great Britain, while upon the Continent it is
comparatively unknown; its operations there being chiefly confined to
France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

In Holland, as early as 1681, Van Hadden and De Witt produced elaborate
works upon the subject, while no publication appeared in England until
twenty years after. These writers were followed by Struyck, in 1740, and
by Kirs