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Updated: July 25, 2025
He is said to have discovered, after his own soldiers had forced the custom-house officers to obey his orders, that, while in their proclamations the directors publicly prohibited the introduction of British goods, some of them were secret insurers of this forbidden merchandise, introduced by fraud and by smuggling; and that while they officially wished for the success of the French arms and destruction of England, they withdrew by stealth what property they had in the French funds, to place it in the English.
It is discovered that the loss of the Spaniards is to be repaid, and, perhaps, sometimes with interest, by the British insurers.
A certain member of parliament was obliged to withdraw himself from his country, in consequence of a discovery, by which it appeared that he had contrived and executed schemes for destroying his own ships at sea, with a view to defraud the insurers. In the course of this year the affairs of the continent did not undergo any material alteration.
Up and down the street, on either hand, are the ship-brokers and insurers, and in the upper stories foreign consuls among a multitude of lawyers and notaries. In 1856 this street was just assuming its present character. The cotton merchants were making it their favorite place of commercial domicile.
"Well, there are brutal men who commit murder out of sheer brutality the ruffians of the slums; and there are sordid men who commit murder for sordid money the insurers who want to forestall their policies, the poisoners who want to inherit property; but have you ever realised that there are also murderers who become so by accident, through their victims' idiosyncrasy?
The loss of the ship is unquestionably owing to the act of the Speedy, united to our own, in setting those Englishmen adrift on the ocean. No insurers will meet a policy that has thus been voided." "Ah! the blackguards! This is worse than I had thought; but you can always make a harbour at Clawbonny?"
Let us suppose that the following instance had been recorded by a writer of the highest reputation, "that the master of a ship, bound to the western colonies with slaves, on a presumption that many of them would die, selected an hundred and thirty two of the most sickly, and ordered them to be thrown into the sea, to recover their value from the insurers, and, above all, that the fatal order was put into execution."
That we ought to prefer the general good to the advantage of individuals, is undoubted, but I cannot conceive that in this case there can be any opposition between private and publick interest. If our insurers gain by securing the ships of our enemies, the nation is benefited, for all national gain must circulate through the hands of individuals.
It is here that we close the circle. Governments often act as reluctant lenders of last resort and provide generous safety nets in the event of a bank collapse. Ultimately, the state is the mother of all insurers, the master policy, the supreme underwriter.
But there will always be circumstances in which there can be no security against frauds, but common faith; nor do I see how we can secure the insurers against the possibility of being defrauded.
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