The assurance principle has within the last few years likewise been applied, with the prospect of success, to the guaranteeing of fidelity in persons holding situations of trust. In this case the calculation is, that out of a large range of instances where individuals of good moral character are entrusted with sums belonging to their employers, a nearly regular amount of defalcation will take place annually, or within some other larger space of time. This may give an unpleasant view of human nature, but it is found to be a true one, and the question which arises with men of business is, by what means may the defalcation be best guarded against. The choice is between a guarantee from one or two persons, and from a trading company. By the former plan, the risk is concentrated upon one or two, who may be deeply injured in consequence: by the other plan, the risk is not merely diffused, it is _extinguished_, for the premiums paid by the insuring parties stand for the losses, besides affording a profit upon the business. Nor have we only thus a protection for private parties against the dangers of security; but individuals, who have the offer of situations on the condition of giving a sufficient guarantee, may now be able to take, where formerly they would have had to decline them, seeing that they might have failed to induce any friend to venture so far in their behalf. Practically, it has also been found that, so far from parties being more ready to give way to temptation when they know that the loss will fall upon a company, they are less so, seeing that the company exercises a more rigid supervision, and presents a sterner front to delinquents, than is the case with private securities in general. Guarantee companies are now established in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other large cities. See Chambers’ Tracts, No. 44.] FOOTNOTES [684] “As the Turks are unacquainted with insurance, they do not lend money but at the rate of fifteen or twenty per cent. But when they lend to merchants who trade by sea, they charge thirty per cent.”--Remarques d’un Voyageur Moderne au Lévant. Amst. 1773, 8vo. [685] De Jure Naturæ et Gentium. [686] Droit de la Nature. [687] De Jure Maritimo. Holmiæ, 1650. [688] Collegium Grotianum, Francof. 1722, 4to. [689] Lib. xxiii. cap. 44. [690] Lib. xxv. cap. 3. [691] Lib. v. cap. 18. Langenbec, in his Anmerkungen über das Hamburgische Schiff-und-Seerecht, p. 370, is of opinion that no traces of insurance are to be found either in Livy or Suetonius. [692] Epist. ad Famil. ii. ep. 17. [693] Ayreri Diatribe de Cambialis Instituti Vestigiis apud Romanos, added to Uhle’s edition of Heineccii Elementa Juris Cambialis. [694] De Jure Maritimo et Nautico. Gryphis. 1652. [695] Lex Mercatoria, or the Ancient Law-Merchant, by Gerard Malynes. London, 1656, fol. p. 105. [696] Seldeni Mare Clausum. Lond. 1636, p. 428. [697] Bourdeaux, 1661, 4to.