Of the rise of assurance generally in Europe the information is limited enough. Malynes and Anderson say it was known about the year 1200, and refer to the marine laws of the isle of Oleron; but a perusal of these has satisfied later writers that the theory was too hastily adopted, and that the earliest ordinance on the subject with which we are acquainted is that of the magistrates of Barcelona, in 1523, to which city must be attributed the honour, until some authentic evidence to the contrary has been produced; and we must not omit to notice, also, that a writer on the “Us et Coutumes de la Mer” says assurance was long detested by the Christians, “being classed by them with the unpardonable sin of taking interest.” The first English statute relating to marine assurance was passed in 1601. The earliest mention of it occurs in 1548, in a letter written by the Protector Somerset to his brother the Lord Admiral, and that it was commonly known in 1558 may be gathered from a speech of the Lord Keeper Bacon. In the act alluded to above, “An Act concerning Matters of Assurances among Merchants,” it is stated, that “it hath been time out of mind an usage among merchants, both of this realm and of foreign nations, when they make any great adventure, specially into remote parts, to give some consideration of money to other persons, to have from them assurance made of their goods, merchandises, ships, and things adventured, or some parts thereof, at such rates and in such sort as the parties assurers and the parties assured can agree; which course of dealing is commonly called a policy of assurance, by means of which policies of assurance it cometh to pass, upon the loss or perishing of any ship, there followeth not the loss or undoing of any man, but the loss lighteth rather easily upon many than heavily upon few, and rather upon them that adventure not than on those that do adventure.”