ominions, and also in the provinces now called the Austrian Netherlands
[Belgium], is one month. And two usance is two months; reckoning not
from the acceptance of the bill, but from the date of it. Usance between
London and Hamburgh is two months, Venice is three months; and double
usance, or two usance, is double that time. Usance payable at Florence
or Leghorn, is two months; but from thence payable at London, usance is
three months. Usance from London to Rouen or Paris, is one month; but
they generally draw at a certain number of days, usually twenty-one
days' sight. Usance from London to Seville, is two months; as likewise
between London and Lisbon, and Oporto, to or from. Usance from Genoa to
Rome is payable at Rome ten days after sight. Usance between Antwerp and
Genoa, Naples or Messina, is two months, whether to or from. Usance from
Antwerp or Amsterdam, payable at Venice, is two months, payable in bank.

There are abundance of niceties in the accepting and paying of bills of
exchange, especially foreign bills, which I think needless to enter upon
here; but this I think I should not omit, namely--

That if a man pays a bill of exchange before it is due, though he had
accepted it, if the man to whom it was payable proves a bankrupt after
he has received the money, and yet before the bill becomes due, the
person who voluntarily paid the money before it was due, shall be liable
to pay it again to the remitter; for as the remitter delivered his money
to the drawer, in order to have it paid again to such person as he
should order, it is, and ought to be, in his power to divert the payment
by altering the bill, and make it payable to any other person whom he
thinks fit, during all the time between the acceptance and the day of
payment.

This has been controverted, I know, in some cases, but I have always
found, that by the most experienced merchants, and especially in places
of the greatest business abroad, it was always given in favour of the
remitter, namely, that the right of guiding the payment is in him, all
the time the bill is running; and no bill can or ought to be paid before
it is due, without the declared assent of the remitter, signified under
his hand, and attested by a public notary. There are, I say, abundance
of niceties in the matter of foreign exchanges, and in the manner of
drawing, accepting, and protesting bills; but as I am now speaking with,
and have confined my discourse in this work to, the