ABSTRACT
Bills of exchange serve as currency by being transferred from one to another by sale, a process which is known as "discounting" or "negotiating." The bills of exchange have been well-known commercial instruments since the fourteenth century. By that act a bill of exchange is "an unconditional order in writing, addressed by one person to another, signed by the person giving it, requiring the person to whom it is addressed to pay on demand or at a fixed determinable future time a certain sum in money to or to the order of a specified person or to bearer." The bill on Stockholm came into existence as the result of the export of goods to Sweden, and the bill on London as the result of the import of goods into England. But bills on London may come into existence as the result of the shipment of goods from one part of the world direct to another without coming to England.
