ion of any.

That the practice of insuring an imaginary value may give opportunity
for greater frauds than can be practised in common dealings, is likewise
evident, but I cannot discover such frauds to require the interposition
of the legislature.

If they are practised only by those of our own nation, the publick does
not suffer; for property is only transferred from one subject to
another: the fraud ought, indeed, to be severely punished in the courts
of criminal justice, but the custom which gave the opportunity of
practising it, ought not to be restrained, any more than any other
profession not criminal in itself, but liable to accidental abuses.

If our insurers are defrauded by foreigners, the nation is then, indeed,
more nearly affected, but even in that case, it is to be remembered,
that the private interest of the insurers, who must be immediately
ruined, is a sufficient security for the publick. For it cannot, sir, be
conceived that any man will obstinately carry on a business, by which he
becomes every day poorer, or, that when he desists he will be succeeded
by another, who cannot but know that he engages in that traffick to his
certain ruin.

The true state of this affair is, that frauds are, indeed, often
committed, and are for that reason always suspected, and that the
insurers, when they insure the ship and cargo against accidents, reckon,
among other chances, the probability of being cheated, and proportion
their demands, not only to the length and danger of the voyage, but to
the character, likewise, of the man with whom they contract.

This, sir, is always the practice of those whom experience has made
acquainted with the danger of implicit confidence and unsuspecting
credulity, nor do any but the young and unskilful suffer themselves to
be so exposed to frauds, as that their fortunes should be injured, or
the general gain of their business overbalanced, by a few deceits.

Thus it appears, that notwithstanding the ease and safety with which the
present methods of insurance admit fraud to be practised, the insurers,
by a proportionate degree of caution, secure themselves from being
injured, and, by consequence, the nation.

The insurance of foreign ships is now to be considered, by which great
profit arises to the nation. We insure, sir, as it has been observed, at
lower rates than other nations, because we have more business of this
kind, and the smallness of our profit is compensated by the fr