William Johnson

“ The protest belongs altogether to foreign mercantile transactions, upon which, on the contrary, it is an indispensable incident to making a drawer of a bill, or endorser of a note, liable. On foreign bills, it is the evidence of demand, and an indispensable step towards the legal notice of non-payment, in consequence of which the undertaking of the drawer or endorser becomes absolute. Hence, as to foreign transactions, it is justly predicated of a protest, that it has a legal or binding effect. ”

“ It must be to pay the debt, or it means nothing. But to cast on the endorser of a foreign bill an obligation to take it up, protest alone is not sufficient; he is still entitled to a reasonable notice in addition to the technical notice communicated by the protest. ”

“ The nullity of a protest on the legal obligations of the parties to an inland bill, is tested by the consideration, that independently of statutory provision, (if any exists any where,) or conventional understanding, the protest on an inland bill is no evidence in a Court of justice of either of the incidents which convert the conditional undertaking of an endorser, into an absolute assumption. ”