nothing to the tenant; and if there be an express covenant to pay the rent, the landlord may oblige the tenant to pay the rent during the remainder of the term, although he has not any premises to occupy. Lord Raymond, 1477. 2 Str. 763. 1 T. R. 310, 711.

And on a general covenant to repair, without an exception as to fire, the tenant is compellable to rebuild in case of accidental fire. 6. T. R. 650.

It is not necessary, however to constitute an insurable interest, that the insured shall in every instance, have the absolute and unqualified property of the effects insured; a trustee, a mortgagee, a reversioner, a factor, or agent, with the custody of goods to be sold on commission, may insure; provided the nature of the property be distinctly specified at the time the insurance is effected.

INSURANCE ON LIVES. Life insurance is a contract by which, in consideration of a stipulated premium, the insurer undertakes to pay the person in whose behalf the insurance is made, a certain sum of money, or an annuity upon the death of the person whose life is insured, whenever the event takes place.

The policy may either be for the whole life, or it may be for a limited time; and the premium to the insurer may either be in a gress sum, or by certain annual payments.

The utility of institutions of this nature is sufficiently obvious. Persons having incomes determinable upon their own lives, or the lives of others, arising from landed property, public employments, pensions, annuities, &c. by paying such annual premiums as they can spare from their present necessities, may secure to the widow or children an ade quate sum of money, or an equivalent annuity upon their deaths. Also where a person having only a life income wants to borrow money, but can give only his personal security for it, he may, by insuring his life, secure to the lender the repayment of such money, though he should die before he is enabled to discharge the debt.

A

Of the warranty of the health and age of the life insured. warranty or condition is generally inserted in the policy, or contained in a declaration or agreement signed by the insured, that the person whose life is intended to be insured has not any disorder which tends to the shortening of life, that he has or has not had the small pox; and that his age does not exceed so many years; that this declaration shall be the basis of the contract between the insurers and the insured ; and that if any untrue averment be contained therein, the contract shall be void, and all money paid on account of the insurance be forfeited.

As this declaration is to be considered as part of the written contract, amounting to a warranty, every person who makes an insurance upon a life, ought to be very circumspect in ascertaining the truth of the allegations contained in it; because upon that the validity of the contract must depend. By the warranty, the person whose life is to be insured, has no disorder which tends to the shortening of life, is not to be understood that he is perfectly free from the seeds of all disorders. The warranty is sufficiently true, if he be in a reasonable good state of health, and that his life may be insured on the common terms, for a person of such age and condition; and even although the person at the time of effecting the policy labors under any particular infirmity, if it can be shown that such infirmity had no tendency to shorten life, and that in fact did not in any degree contribute to his death, such warranty will be sufficiently complied with. Ross v. Bradslaw. 1 Bl.

312.

If there be no warranty, the insurer takes the risk upon himself, whatever may be the condition of the health of the insured; unless indeed, there should be some fraudulent misrepresentation or concealment. Stackpool v. Simon, at N.P. Hil. Vac. 1779.

In insurance upon lives, as well as in other insurances, not only the cause of the loss must have originated, but the loss itself must appear to have happened during the continuance of the risk. If, therefore, a man's life is insured for a year, and some short time before the expiration of the term he receives a mortal wound, of which he dies after the year, the insurer is.not liable. Lockyer v. Offley, 1 T. R. 254.

In a policy to take effect from the day of the date, the day of the date is excluded. 2 Salk. 625. 1 Lord Raym. 480.

INDORSEMENT is a term usually applied to the holder of a negotiable instrument, characterising that act by which he transfers or assigns his interest in the same to some third person, by endorsing or signing his name at the back of the instrument.

Indorsements are either in blank or in full; in the former, the party signs his name only; in the latter, some particular person is mentioned. They may also be either general or restrictive. A general indorsement is synonymous with an indorsement in blank, a restrictive indorsement is to some particular person, or upon some certain condition. The indorsement is considered in law as constituting a new bill, and an additional security; as the indorser guarantees the payment of the bill, and stands responsible for the acceptor and all antecedent indorsers. See Bills of Exchange.

INTEREST OF MONEY is the premium paid for the use of a sum. The laws relative to interest, and setting limits to the profits of capital in one form, while they leave it free in every other, are certainly very impolitic, as it tends in a great measure to check the free circulation of capital, the price of goods, of rent, and labor, are left open to find its own natural value, and that of money alone is under the most arbitrary and precise regulations, for it is a certain truth that often a man can afford to give an high interest for money, either to speculate, or to meet his payments. As interest for money is in its nature as fair and just as any other species of property, it follows that, like as with regard to other property, that rate should be determined by circumstances. The risk of the lender in all cases, ought to be the consideration; and the advantage which the borrower can obtain by the use of the money, another. Nothing that is in itself fair and useful ought to be forbidden or restricted, for under all circumstances the parties are the best judges of the value of money.

When money is borrowed upon certain sorts of security, or is reimburseable only in case of certain contingencies, then a higher rate of interest is allowed. See Bottomry, Insurance, Usury.

INTEREST COMPOUND, or interest upon interest, is as the latter designation expresses, when the interest instead of being paid is added to the capital sum, and becomes an increased capital. This is not allowed by law, though it can be practised without infringing any statute, by renewing the bond or instrument, and compromising the whole in it, or by lending the interest separately.

The immense accumulation produced by compound interest at the end of a long period is such as astonishes those even who comprehend the progression, which is not difficult to do; but the acceleration of the process depends considerably on the times at which the interest is supposed to be added to the principal. In calculation on the strict principle of the business, it is supposed to be added every day; but in real business it can only be added quarterly, half yearly, or yearly, when the interest would in right become the property of the lender by falling due.

LAW MERCHANT, is a system of customs acknowledged and taken notice of by all commercial nations, and these customs constitute a part of the general law of the land, and being part of that law, their existence are not only admitted to be proved by witnesses, but the judges are bound to take notice of them ex officio. These customs are of the highest validity in all commercial transactions.

LAW OF NATIONS, is a system of rules deducible by natural reason, from the immutable principles of natural justice, and established by universal consent among the civilized inhabitants of the world, in order to decide all disputes, and to insure the observance of justice and good faith in that intercourse which must frequently occur between them and the individuals belonging to each; or they depend upon mutual compacts, treaties, leagues, and agreements between the separate, free and independent communities.

In the construction of these principles there is no judge to resort to, but the general law of nature and of reason, being the only law with which the contracting parties are all equally conversant, and to which they are all equally amenable.

From the time that men began to form themselves into societies, there must necessarily have existed two sorts of rights and obligations for each nation.

1. In the internal government, the rights and obligations between the sovereign and the people. These form what may be called public universal law; and when considered as founded on some fundamental laws peculiar to a particular state, form what may be called public positive law. Secondly, there are obligations between two nations. Each nation being considered in the light of an individual living in a state of nature, the obligations of one nation towards another, are no more than those of an individual modified and applied to nations: this is called the natural law of nations. It is universal and necessary, all nations being indispensably governed by it, all the nations of Europe might by common consent, make treaties to regulate the different rights, which would form a code of the positive law of nations; but there never did, and probably never will, exist such a code. What has become a law between two or three, or even a majority of the powers of Europe, either by treaty or by custom, can never bind the others. However, by comparing the treaties made between different powers, we discover that certain principles have been almost generally adopted by all the nations that have made treaties on the same subject. In like manner a custom received among the majority of the powers of Europe is readily adopted by the rest; and, in general, all nations pay a certain attention to the customs admitted by others. It is then the aggregate of the rights and obligations established among the nations of Europe, or the majority of them, whether by treaties, by custom, or by tacit convention, which form the general law of nations.

Treaties cease to be obligatory when the sovereign power with

whom they were concluded ceases to exist, and when the state passes under the dominion of another power. Sometimes they cease when a nation changes its constitution, and always when a war breaks out between the contracting parties; therefore all treaties existing between belligerent powers previous to the war must be renewed at the peace, if the parties wish to continue them.

As soon as a nation has taken possession of a territory in right of the first occupier, it becomes the absolute and sole proprietor, and has a right to exclude all other nations, to use and dispose of it at pleasure, provided no encroachment be thereby made on the rights of other nations. It belongs to the possessor of course, to make the distribution of territory, and every thing attached to it. What is not, in this distribution, granted to individuals, or what afterwards ceases to belong to them, remains or falls to the whole society, or to the power among them to whom they have conferred the right of acquiring. The same is nearly the case when a territory is ceded to a state.

The internal constitution of a state, rests in general, on two points; on the principles adopted with respect to him or them, in whom the sovereign power is lodged, and on those adopted with respect to the manner in which this sovereign power is to be exercised. Both these depend on the will, of these states, foreign nations having no right to interfere in arrangements which are purely domestic.

As a nation is entirely free in its choice of a chief, so it is in fixing the extent of his power, even after the constitution is formed, the nation, with its sovereign, can at any time make what changes in it, they may think proper, without giving right to foreign powers of intermeddling. And even should there arise disputes on the subject in the interior of the state, no foreign power can with justice interfere.

The sovereign or chief has a right to forbid all foreigners to enter or pass through his dominions without permission. At present, however no power in Europe refuses, in time of peace, to grant such permission to the subjects of a foreign power; nor is it even necessary for such subjects to ask permission to enter a state, and bring their property into it. But as this liberty ought not to be prejudicial to the state, every power has reserved to itself the right, 1. To be informed of the name and quality of every foreigner that arrives; and to this end passports taken at the place whence a foreigner comes ought to be regarded as authentic, provided they have been granted by persons having authority to grant them; such as sovereigns, magistrates, ministers or ambassadors. 2. Each state has a right to dismiss all sus