A drawer was not, even after 23 years, found entitled to plead that his draft wanted the solemnities of a probative writ.
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In a process of recourse at the instance of an executor, who, after the bill had lain over 23 years in the defunct's custody, protested it for non-acceptance, the drawer considered he had nothing to say for want of due negotiation, because the drawee was solvent; but he pleaded, That the bill was null upon the act 1681, as wanting writer's name and witnesses. He allowed that bills are excepted out of this act by custom, for the benefit of commerce, and by analogy to the laws of trading nations; but then the exception ought not to be absolute; it ought to be no broader than the practice of other nations will support, from whence the exception is copied; and there is no trading nation in Europe where there is not a limitation upon the currency of bills; in some five years, in some six, in others seven; but none goes the length of twenty.
