being put, passed in the negative, 142 against 109.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB. 27, 1740-1.

DEBATE ON THE SECOND READING OF A BILL TO PREVENT INCONVENIENCIES
ARISING FROM INSURANCE OF SHIPS.

The bill being read, sir John BARNARD spoke thus:--Sir, there cannot be
brought before this house any questions more difficult in themselves,
more entangled with a multiplicity of relations, or more perplexed with
an endless diversity of circumstances, than those which relate to
commercial affairs; affairs on which the most experienced often
disagree, and on which the most sagacious may deceive themselves with
erroneous conjectures.

There are no questions, sir, which require so much personal knowledge of
the subject to which they relate, nor is there any subject with which so
few gentlemen in this house have had opportunities of being acquainted.
There are no questions, sir, which their variety of relations to
different persons exposes to be so easily misrepresented without
detection, nor any in which the opposition of particular interests so
much incites a false representation. In all these cases, deceit is easy,
and there is a strong temptation to deceive.

Nor are these questions, sir, always perplexed by intentional fraud, or
false assertions, of which they that utter them are themselves
conscious.

Those who deceive us, do not always suppress any truth of which they are
convinced, nor set facts before us in any other light, than that in
which themselves behold them; they for the most part err with an honest
intention, and propagate no mistakes but those which they have
themselves admitted.

Of this kind, sir, are, doubtless, the measures proposed in the bill
before us, which those by whom they are promoted may easily think to be
of benefit to the publick, but which, I believe, will appear the result
of imperfect views, and partial consideration.

The great and fundamental errour, sir, of the patrons of this bill,
seems to be an opinion that the practice of insuring is not known to
other nations, nor can be carried on in any other place; and from this
principle they deduce consequences, which, if they were inevitably
certain, might easily influence us to an immediate approbation of the
bill, as necessary to secure our commerce, and distress our enemies.

They conclude, sir, with sufficient justness, that very few merchants
would hazard their fortunes in long voyages or distant commerce, or
expose themselves t