by Daniel Defoe
Or would not any man acknowledge that putting this country into a
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
for gain, and when I am necessitated to have a greater cargo of
goods in such or such a bottom than my stock can afford to lose,
another may surely offer to go a part with me; and as it is just if
I give another part of the gain, he should run part of the risk, so
it is as just that if he runs part of my risk, he should have part
of the gain. Some object the disparity of the premium to the
hazard, when the insurer runs the risk of 100 pounds on the seas
from Jamaica to London for 40s., which, say they, is preposterous
and unequal. Though this objection is hardly worth answering to men
of business, yet it looks something fair to them that know no
better; and for the information of such, I trouble the reader with a
few heads:
First, they must consider the insurer is out no stock.
Secondly, it is but one risk the insurer runs; whereas the assured
has had a risk out, a risk of debts abroad, a risk of a market, and
a risk of his factor, and has a risk of a market to come, and
therefore ought to have an answerable profit.
Thirdly, if it has been a trading voyage, perhaps the adventurer has
paid three or four such premiums, which sometimes make the insurer
clear more by a voyage than the merchant. I myself have paid 100
pounds insurances in those small premiums on a voyage I have not
gotten 50 pounds by; and I suppose I am not the first that has done
so either.
This way of assuring has also, as other arts of trade have, suffered
some improvement (if I may be allowed that term) in our age; and the
first step upon it was an insurance office for houses, to insure
them from fire. Common fame gives the project to Dr. Barebone--a
man, I suppose, better known as a builder than a physician. Whether
it were his, or whose it was, I do not inquire; it was settled on a
fund of ground rents, to answer in case of loss, and met with very
good acceptance.
But it was soon followed by another, by way of friendly society,
where all who subscribe pay their quota to build up any man's house
who is a contributor, if it shall happen to be burnt. I won't
decide which is the best, or which succeeded best, but I believe the
latter brings in most money to the contriver.
Only one benefit I cannot omit which they reap from these two
societies who are not concerned in either; that if any fire happen,
whether in houses insured or not insured, they have each of them a
set of lusty fellows, generally watermen, who being immediately
called up, wherever they live, by watchmen appointed, are, it must
be confessed, very active and diligent in helping to put out the
fire.
As to any further improvement to be made upon assurances in trade,
no question there may; and I doubt not but on payment of a small
duty to the government the king might be made the general insurer of
all foreign trade, of which more under another head.
I am of the opinion also that an office of insurance erected to
insure the titles of lands, in an age where they are so precarious
as now, might be a project not unlikely to succeed, if established
on a good fund. But I shall say no more to that, because it seems
to be a design in hand by some persons in town, and is indeed no
thought of my own.
Insuring of life I cannot admire; I shall say nothing to it but that
in Italy, where stabbing and poisoning is so much in vogue,
something may be said for it, and on contingent annuities; and yet I
never knew the thing much approved of on any account.
OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
Another branch of insurance is by contribution, or (to borrow the
term from that before mentioned) friendly societies; which is, in
short, a number of people entering into a mutual compact to help one
another in case any disaster or distress fall upon them.
If mankind could agree, as these might be regulated, all things
which have casualty in them might be secured. But one thing is
particularly required in this way of assurances: none can be
admitted but such whose circumstances are (at least, in some degree)
alike, and so mankind must be sorted into classes; and as their
contingencies differ, every different sort may be a society upon
even terms; for the circumstances of people, as to life, differ
extremely by the age and constitution of their bodies and difference
of employment--as he that lives on shore against him that goes to
sea, or a young man against an old man, or a shopkeeper against a
soldier, are unequal. I do not pretend to determine the
controverted point of predestination, the foreknowledge and decrees
of Providence. Perhaps, if a man be decreed to be killed in the
trenches, the same foreknowledge ordered him to list himself a
soldier, that it might come to pass, and the like of a seaman. But
this I am sure, speaking of second causes, a seaman or a soldier are
subject to more contingent hazards than other men, and therefore are
not upon equal terms to form such a society; nor is an annuity on
the life of such a man worth so much as it is upon other men:
therefore if a society should agree together to pay the executor of
every member so much after the decease of the said member, the
seamen's executors would most certainly have an advantage, and
receive more than they pay. So that it is necessary to sort the
world into parcels--seamen with seamen, soldiers with soldiers, and
the like.
Nor is this a new thing; the friendly society must not pretend to
assume to themselves the contrivance of the method, or think us
guilty of borrowing from them, when we
draw this into other
branches; for I know nothing is taken from them but the bare words,
"friendly society," which they cannot pretend to be any considerable
piece of invention either.
I can refer them to the very individual practice in other things,
which claims prescription beyond the beginning of the last age, and
that is in our marshes and fens in Essex, Kent, and the Isle of Ely;
where great quantities of land being with much pains and a vast
charge recovered out of the seas and rivers, and maintained with
banks (which they call walls), the owners of those lands agree to
contribute to the keeping up those walls and keeping out the sea,
which is all one with a friendly society; and if I have a piece of
land in any level or marsh, though it bounds nowhere on the sea or
river, yet I pay my proportion to the maintenance of the said wall
or bank; and if at any time the sea breaks in, the damage is not
laid upon the man in whose land the breach happened, unless it was
by his neglect, but it lies on the whole land, and is called a
"level lot."
Again, I have known it practised in troops of horse, especially when
it was so ordered that the troopers mounted themselves; where every
private trooper has agreed to pay, perhaps, 2d. per diem out of his
pay into a public stock, which stock was employed to remount any of
the troop who by accident should lose his horse.
Again, the sailors' contribution to the Chest at Chatham is another
friendly society, and more might be named.
To argue against the lawfulness of this would be to cry down common
equity as well as charity: for as it is kind that my neighbour
should relieve me if I fall into distress or decay, so it is but
equal he should do so if I agreed to have done the same for him; and
if God Almighty has commanded us to relieve and help one another in
distress, surely it must be commendable to bind ourselves by
agreement to obey that command; nay, it seems to be a project that
we are led to by the divine rule, and has such a latitude in it that
for aught I know, as I said, all the disasters in the world might be
prevented by it, and mankind be secured from all the miseries,
indigences, and distresses that happen in the world. In which I
crave leave to be a little particular.
First general peace might be secured all over the world by it, if
all the powers agreed to suppress him that usurped or encroached
upon his neighbour. All the contingencies of life might be fenced
against by this method (as fire is already), as thieves, floods by
land, storms by sea, losses of all sorts, and death itself, in a
manner, by making it up to the survivor.
I shall begin with the seamen; for as their lives are subject to
more hazards than others, they seem to come first in view.
OF SEAMEN.
Sailors are les enfants perdus, "the forlorn hope of the world;"
they are fellows that bid defiance to terror, and maintain a
constant war with the elements; who, by the magic of their art,
trade in the very confines of death, and are always posted within
shot, as I may say, of the grave. It is true, their familiarity
with danger makes them despise it (for which, I hope, nobody will
say they are the wiser); and custom has so hardened them that we
find them the worst of men, though always in view of their last
moment.
I have observed one great error in the custom of England relating to
these sort of people, and which this way of friendly society would
be a remedy for:
If a seaman who enters himself, or is pressed into, the king's
service be by any accident wounded or disabled, to recompense him
for the loss, he receives a pension during life, which the sailors
call "smart-money," and is proportioned to their hurt, as for the
loss of an eye, arm, leg, or finger, and the like: and as it is a
very honourable thing, so it is but reasonable that a poor man who
loses his limbs (which are his estate) in the service of the
Government, and is thereby disabled from his labour to get his
bread, should be provided for, and not suffer to beg or starve for
want of those limbs he lost in the service of his country.
But if you come to the seamen in the merchants' service, not the
least provision is made: which has been the loss of many a good
ship, with many a rich cargo, which would otherwise have been saved.
And the sailors are in the right of it, too. For instance, a
merchant ship coming home from the Indies, perhaps very rich, meets
with a privateer (not so strong but that she might fight him and
perhaps get off); the captain calls up his crew, tells them,
"Gentlemen, you see how it is; I don't question but we may clear
ourselves of this caper, if you will stand by me." One of the crew,
as willing to fight as the rest, and as far from a coward as the
captain, but endowed with a little more wit than his fellows,
replies, "Noble captain, we are all willing to fight, and don't
question but to beat him off; but here is the case: if we are
taken, we shall be set on shore and then sent home, and lose perhaps
our clothes and a little pay; but if we fight and beat the
privateer, perhaps half a score of us may be wounded and lose our
limbs, and then we are undone and our families. If you will sign an
obligation to us that the owners or merchants shall allow a pension
to such as are maimed, that we may not fight for the ship, and go a-
begging ourselves, we will bring off the ship or sink by her side;
otherwise I am not willing to fight, for my part." The captain
cannot do this; so they strike, and the ship and cargo are lost.
If I should turn this supposed example into a real history, and name
the ship and the captain that did so, it would be too plain to be
contradicted.
Wherefore, for the encouragement of sailors in the service of the
merchant, I would have a friendly society erected for seamen;
wherein all sailors or seafaring men, entering their names, places
of abode, and the voyages they go upon at an office of insurance for
seamen, and paying there a certain small quarterage of 1s. per
quarter, should have a sealed certificate from the governors of the
said office for the articles hereafter mentioned:
I.
If any such seaman, either in fight or by any other accident at sea,
come to be disabled, he should receive from the said office the
following sums of money, either in pension for life, or ready money,
as he pleased:
Pounds Pounds
An eye 25 2
Both eyes 100 8
One leg 50 4
Both legs 80 6
For the Right hand 80 6
loss of Left hand 50 or 4 per annum for life
Right arm 100 8
Left arm 80 6
Both hands 160 12
Both arms 200 16<
br />
Any broken arm, or leg, or thigh, towards the cure 10 pounds
If taken by the Turks, 50 pounds towards his ransom.
If he become infirm and unable to go to sea or maintain himself by
age or sickness 6 pounds per annum.
To their wives if they are killed or drowned 50 pounds
In consideration of this, every seaman subscribing to the society
shall agree to pay to the receipt of the said office his quota of
the sum to be paid whenever, and as often as, such claims are made,
the claims to be entered into the office and upon sufficient proof
made, the governors to regulate the division and publish it in
print.
For example, suppose 4,000 seamen subscribe to this society, and
after six months--for no man should claim sooner than six months--a
merchant's ship having engaged a privateer, there comes several
claims together, as thus -
Pounds
A was wounded and lost one leg . . . . . . . . . 50
B blown up with powder, and has lost an eye . . . . 25
C had a great shot took off his arm . . . . . . . . 100
D with a splinter had an eye struck out . . . . . . 25
E was killed with a great shot; to be paid to his wife 50
===
250
The governors hereupon settle the claims of these persons, and make
publication "that whereas such and such seamen, members of the
society, have in an engagement with a French privateer been so and
so hurt, their claims upon the office, by the rules and agreement of
the said office, being adjusted by the governors, amounts to 250
pounds, which, being equally divided among the subscribers, comes to
1s. 3d. each, which all persons that are subscribers to the said
office are desired to pay in for their respective subscriptions,
that the said wounded persons may be relieved accordingly, as they
expect to be relieved if the same or the like casualty should befall
them."
It is but a small matter for a man to contribute, if he gave 1s. 3d.
out of his wages to relieve five wounded men of his own fraternity;
but at the same time to be assured that if he is hurt or maimed he
shall have the same relief, is a thing so rational that hardly
anything but a hare-brained follow, that thinks of nothing, would
omit entering himself into such an office.
I shall not enter further into this affair, because perhaps I may
give the proposal to some persons who may set it on foot, and then
the world may see the benefit of it by the execution.
II.--FOR WIDOWS.
The same method of friendly society, I conceive, would be a very
proper proposal for widows.
We have abundance of women, who have been bred well and lived well,
ruined in a few years, and perhaps left young with a houseful of
children and nothing to support them, which falls generally upon the
wives of the inferior clergy, or of shopkeepers and artificers.
They marry wives with perhaps 300 pounds to 1,000 pounds portion,
and can settle no jointure upon them. Either they are extravagant
and idle, and waste it; or trade decays; or losses or a thousand
contingencies happen to bring a tradesman to poverty, and he breaks.
The poor young woman, it may be, has three or four children, and is
driven to a thousand shifts, while he lies in the Mint or Friars
under the dilemma of a statute of bankruptcy; but if he dies, then
she is absolutely undone, unless she has friends to go to.
Suppose an office to be erected, to be called an office of insurance
for widows, upon the following conditions:
Two thousand women, or their husbands for them, enter their names
into a register to be kept for that purpose, with the names, age,
and trade of their husbands, with the place of their abode, paying
