condition for carriages and travellers to pass would be a great
work? The gentlemen would find the benefit of it in the rent of
their land and price of their timber; the country people would find
the difference in the sale of their goods, which now they cannot
carry beyond the first market town, and hardly thither; and the
whole county would reap an advantage a hundred to one greater than
the charge of it. And since the want we feel of any convenience is
generally the first motive to contrivance for a remedy, I wonder no
man over thought of some expedient for so considerable a defect.



OF ASSURANCES.



Assurances among merchants, I believe, may plead prescription, and
have been of use time out of mind in trade, though perhaps never so
much a trade as now.

It is a compact among merchants. Its beginning being an accident to
trade, and arose from the disease of men's tempers, who, having run
larger adventures in a single bottom than afterwards they found
convenient, grew fearful and uneasy; and discovering their
uneasiness to others, who perhaps had no effects in the same vessel,
they offer to bear part of the hazard for part of the profit:
convenience made this a custom, and custom brought it into a method,
till at last it becomes a trade.

I cannot question the lawfulness of it, since all risk in trade is