‘Our Practice Has a Superiority:’ Debt Enforcement, Bills of Exchange, and Credit in Eighteenth-Century Glasgow

This article explores the relationship between the Scots law of bills of exchange, debt enforcement procedures, and credit in the eighteenth century. Compared to England, Scots law’s procedures for recovering debts on obligations were faster, cheaper, and more efficient. These legal provisions are under-appreciated in the current literature on bills of exchange. Scots law’s superiority meant that the provision of medium-value credit in urban economies often occurred through written obligations. Using a new archival data set of nearly 300 bills of exchange from Glasgow, this article demonstrates how Glaswegians used those instruments. It finds that elements of the law of obligations traditionally stressed in the literature, namely negotiability, do little to explain the use of credit instruments in Glasgow. Instead, it was Scots law’s quick recovery procedures that account for their patterns of use. The data shows that inland bills did not commonly pass from hand to hand but instead were held as proofs of debt that could quickly be enforced. The advantage of Scots law in this area did not go unnoticed by contemporaries, and unsuccessful attempts at legal reform in the Victorian era sought to introduce the Scottish rules to the English system. This article joins a growing literature in turning scholarly focus away from the negotiable properties of bills, and shows the importance of expedited enforcement procedures for understanding the Scots credit system. It suggests that paying closer attention to procedural law and differences between jurisdictions can advance research agendas on the relationship between law and economic development.