t4| Cate! ruled and adjudged in the r7g2. The inconveniences, which might refult from ellablilhing fo
- VVV firiél a rule of evidence,were llrongly_urged, and llruck me
forcibly on the argument; but, on a clofe infpeélion, they will
- difappear, or be found to bebalanced by oppolite advantages.
I The payee may avoid them if he will, by a general mdorfe- ment, which is now the molt common, and is faid to be ‘ the moil: proper one. The diliiculty fuggetied, of tracing pay- ment to the feveral indorfees, may be avoided a general receipt of the lall: indorfee on the protell. Belides it is a real beneiit to the mercantile world, that bills may be thus reltrained. It is a delirable fecurity againlt acci- dents and fraud ; even bank bills, generally payable to bearer, ` are framed in this manner for diflant remittances. Being made payable to order and fpecially indorfed, the payment can bc to no one but the indorfec. If ‘ the acceptor fpgys a bill, fpecially indorfed, to any but theindorfee, it is clear m the cafe cited by ]udge 1'eam, as alfo from Doug. 6r7. that he mufl: pay it over again. To admit that poffeliion is any evi- dence of right in this cafe, would be to make all bills,-in eE`e&, bills payable to bearer ;—would multiply loifes, and cncreafe the temptations to theft. Upon the whole, I am fully fatisiied, that as the plaintifls gave no evidence of payment to the laii indorfee, they were not in- . titled to a vcrdiél, and that judgment mull: be entered as in . cafe of a ’non-fuit. · Yzaras, jqlire, concurred, and delivered his reafons at lar e. gi-nrrrau, fardlice. I alfo concur. I acknowledge that, on the argument, thought differently, from an appreheniion that ~ the courfe of mercantile negociations might be obflruéied ; but, on confidering the cafe immediately after the Term,. I was fully fatisfied, that both omprinciole and by law, the mere holding a bill of exchange, cannot entitle an intermediate indorfce to call upon the acceptor for payment. Upon prinoqile it cannot be ; becaufe, when a man indorfes an accepted bill, he parts with all his right to the indorfee, for a · valuable conlideration, and, or to him, the necgptor ir d¢bor_ged; thc right of callin upon the acceptor can never be regained, but . by taking up thegbill from the lall: indorfee, and paying him the money. Some evidence of this payment mult be neceffary; otherwife, one who ands, or jfmls, the bill, might fue the accep- tor, and he would mg/werable again to the lalt indorfee, who . never haviqgi received fatisfaftion cuouldfurtbp 1·e¢·o·wr from the acceptor. e ufage, on enquiring, I find to be now, what it appears to have been in Lord Holt'.: time, that when the lafl: in- dorfec receives the money from _an intermediate indorfee, he _ · gives
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