Mercantile Law, the branch of municipal law which is similar, and in many respects identical, in all the trading countries of the world. An understanding was earliest established in the department of maritime law, the history of which begins with such codes as the Consolato del Mare, published at Barcelona in 1494, and includes such a series of regulations as the English Merchant Shipping Acts (1854 to 1888), which consolidate and amend the law as to seamen and their contracts with employers, desertion, provisions, unseaworthy ships, pilotage, signals, deck cargoes, the load-line, life-saving apparatus, &c. Mercantile and maritime law is dealt with in this work under a large number of heads, as
| Apprentice. | Debt. | Master and Servant. |
| Bankruptcy. | Employers' Liability. | Partnership. |
| Bill. | Insurance. | Plimsoll. |
| Company. | International Law. | Weights and Measures. |