The interest of money so lent varied: sometimes it rose as high as
30 per cent: it seems to have depended principally on the risks of the
voyage.
In another oration of Demosthenes we discover glimpses of what by many has
been deemed maritime insurance, or rather of the fraud at present called
barratry, which is practised to defraud the insurer: but, as Park in his
learned Treatise on Marine Insurance has satisfactorily proved, the
ancients were certainly ignorant of maritime insurance; though there can be
no doubt frauds similar to those practised at present were practised.
According to Demosthenes, masters of vessels were in the habit of borrowing
considerable sums, which they professed to invest in a cargo of value, but
instead of such a cargo, they took on board sand and stones, and when out
at sea, sunk the vessel. As the money was lent on the security either of
the cargo or ship, or both, of course the creditors were defrauded: but it
does not appear how they could, without detection, substitute sand or
stones for the cargo.
The Athenians passed a number of laws respecting commerce, mostly of a
prohibitory nature. Money could not be advanced or lent on any vessel, or
the cargo of any vessel, that did not return to Athens, and discharge its
cargo there. The exportation of various articles, which were deemed of the
first necessity, was expressly forbidden: such as timber for building, fir,
cypress, plane, and other trees, which grew in the neighbourhood of the
city; the rosin collected on Mount Parnes, the wax of Mount Hymettus--which
two articles, incorporated together, or perhaps singly, were used for
daubing over, or caulking their ships.
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