Four months after date pay to the order of JOHN KENT three thousand dollars, value received, and charge the same to account of To ELI TRIPP, Boston, Mass. DAN STORRS. In the case of this bill, which may serve as a sample of thousands, Storrs is the _drawer_, who is creditor in relation to Tripp, and Tripp is _drawee_, but Storrs is debtor in relation to Kent, who is the _payee_. A bill of exchange is the sale of a debt, in such a way that two debts are so far forth set off against each other, and both transactions are closed without sending any money at all. Tripp owes Storrs, and Storrs owes Kent, and so Storrs pays Kent by an order on Tripp. As this is a bill at four months, Kent will doubtless send it to Tripp for his _acceptance_, as it is called, that is, his acknowledgment that he owes Storrs to that amount, and that he will pay the sum to the holder of the bill when it becomes due. An acceptance is written on the _face_ of a bill, and an indorsement upon the _back_ of the note: the initials are sufficient for the name of an acceptor, but the full business name is usual for an indorser. Thus a bill of exchange is the formal sale of a debt, in order to liquidate thereby another debt, when the parties to the transaction live in different and distant places. Storrs does business in Pittsfield, and Tripp in Boston, and it is a matter of comparative indifference where Kent lives, unless there is trouble at the time of collection, for he will perhaps negotiate this bill again, that is, make use of it to pay some debt that he himself owes. It is not often that the same person, as Tripp, happens to owe another person in a distant town, as Storrs, the same amount as Storrs owes another person somewhere, as Kent; but by two bills of exchange, one drawn by each creditor on his own debtor, and then each set off against the other, through the simple and beautiful expedient of bank balances, substantially the same advantages are reached as if it always happened so. Many bills of exchange are drawn _at sight_, as it is called, in which case the payee presents it for payment to the drawee, there is no acceptance and no discount, and a bill of this kind becomes the same as a cheque. Time bills, however, are usually discounted: the payee indorses his claim over to a fourth party by name, or, by what is called an indorsement _in blank_, that is, by merely writing his own name on the back of the bill, makes it payable to bearer: when banks buy these bills for discount, it is on the joint credit of acceptor and drawer and payee, and in that order of validity and precedence: a promissory note may be protested by a bank without notice to the maker, but a bill of exchange cannot be without notice to the drawer: a promissory note has two parties to it, a debtor and a creditor; while a bill of exchange has three parties to it, two creditors and a debtor.