“Insuring of property in any city or town that is besieged, is a common branch of gambling insurance in time of war, but ingenious gamesters, ever studious to invent new and variegate old games, have out of this lawful game (for insurance in general is no more than a game at chance) contrived a new amusement, which is, for one person to give another 40l., and in case Gibraltar, for instance, is taken by a particular time, the person to whom the 40l. are paid is to repay 100l.; but if, on the contrary, the siege is raised before the time mentioned, he keeps the 40l.
“In proportion as the danger of being taken increases, the premium of insurance advances; and when the place has been so situated, that repeated intelligence could be received of the progress of the siege, I have known the insurance rise to 90l. for the 100l. A fine field this opens for spreading false reports, and making private letters from the Continent. But how infinitely more harmless to trifle with property than to affect the life of a fellow-subject, or to injure him with the public, to serve a private end!
“Of sham insurances, that is to say, insurances without property on the spot, made on places besieged, in time of war, foreign ministers residing with us have made considerable advantages. It was a well known fact, that a certain ambassador insured 30,000l. on Minorca in the war of 1755, with advices at the same time in his pocket that it was taken.”
At length the legislature interfered, and in order to hinder the growth of gambling in life assurance, it was enacted, that “no insurance shall be made on the life of any person, or on any event whatsoever, where the person on whose account such policy shall be made shall have no interest, or by way of gaming or wagering; and that every such insurance shall be null and void.
“It shall not be lawful to make any policy on the life of any person, or on any other event, without inserting in the policy the name of the person interested therein, or for what use, or on whose account such policy is so made.
“Where the insured has an interest in such life or event, no greater sum shall be received from the insurer than the amount of the interest of the insured in such life or event.”[14]
This statute was some time before it came into effective operation. It was after this that policies and wagers were carried on to such an incredible degree in the trial of her Grace of Kingston. The underwriters were fully aware that their movements were illegal; but the spirit of gambling by means of assurance was too common to be put down at once by an act of parliament, and in 1777, a singular instance of the determination to grant wager policies came before the public eye. Charles Genevieve Louise Auguste d’Eon de Beaumont, popularly known as the Chevalier d’Eon, was the cause of a trial before Lord Mansfield, as to the validity of a policy without an insurable interest. The career of this man or woman, for the question was long doubtful, was familiar to the public, and will illustrate the excitement of the period. Equerry to Louis XV. doctor of law, ambassador and royal censor, employed in a confidential mission to the Russian court, and said to be a favourite of its empress, D’Eon came to England with a reputation ready made. He soon quarrelled with le Duc de Nivernois, ambassador from the most Christian King, and as D’Eon proved unsuccessful in his attempt to injure his grace, he was so incensed that he disclaimed all connection with the court and ambassador, declared that the peace had been accomplished in England by the agency of French gold; denouncing also, in no measured terms, those who had been accomplices, and pointing almost by name to men who, under the guise of patriotism, had betrayed their country. As a patriot’s capital is his public character, the accused parties waxed wroth, defied their calumniator, and talked of prosecuting him. The people, unwilling to lose their faith in English probity, took the part of their countrymen, and mobbed the knight wherever he appeared.
In the mean time, doubts arising as to his sex, his calumnies were all forgotten, and a new interest was attached to the chevalier, by the assertion of some that he was male, and of others that he was female. This was something fresh for assurance brokers, and the question was mooted at Lloyd’s. At first wagers were made; but as there was no present mode of deciding whether this extraordinary individual was man or woman, they were quickly abandoned.
It was decided, therefore, that policies should be opened on his sex, by which it was undertaken that on payment of fifteen guineas, one hundred should be returned whenever the chevalier was proved to be a woman. At first he pretended to be indignant, and advertised that on a certain day and hour he would satisfy all whom it concerned. The place was a City coffee-house, the hour was that of ’Change, and the curiosity of the citizens was greatly excited. The assurances on this eccentric person’s sex were greatly and immediately increased, policies to a very large amount were made out, wagers of thousands were entered into, and to the rendezvous thronged bankers, underwriters, and brokers. The hour approached, and with it came the chevalier, who, dressed in the uniform of a French officer and decorated with the order of St. Louis, rose to address the assembly. It is easy to imagine the breathless attention of the listening throng (for a million was said to depend on his words), the eager interest of some, the cool cupidity of others, the ribaldry of more, and the astonishment of all, as with an audacity only to be equalled by his charlatanry, he said “he came to prove that he belonged to that sex whose dress he wore, and challenged any one there to disprove his manhood with sword or with cudgel.” The spirit of the citizens had long passed away, commerce had sheathed the sword of chivalry, and none grasped the gauntlet for the honour of London. Bankers, brokers, and underwriters gaped at one another aghast; and though the boldness of the speech pleased many, it was far from satisfactory to those who came with the hope of winning a wager, or claiming their assurance money. The knight departed in triumph. Large sums were said to be offered him to divulge his sex. “I know for certain,” says a writer of the day, “that there were sums offered to him, amounting to 30,000l.” However this may be, it was thought necessary to settle the question, if possible; and one of the first actions tried after the act to prevent gaming in assurance, arose from a policy on the sex of D’Eon, in which it appeared that Mr. Jaques, a broker, had received several premiums of 35 guineas, for which he had granted policies undertaking to return 100 whenever the chevalier was proved to be a woman. The form of the contract was as follows:—
“In consideration of thirty-five guineas for one-hundred received of Roebuck and Vaughan, we whose names are hereunto subscribed, do severally promise to pay the sums of money which we have hereunto subscribed, on the following condition; viz., in case the Chevalier d’Eon should hereafter prove to be a female.”