changes In the eighteenth century, English merchant law was still based on the Lex mercatoria, a medieval series of customs and principles used to regulate trading. Other countries in Europe had reformed and modernised their law, resulting in English merchant law being about a century behind mercantile law of other European countries. A merchant was, by his very nature, international, and the inconsistencies between English law and the law of other nations made business difficult. Mansfield made a great effort to bring English merchant law up to the same standards as that of other European nations, defining his position by saying that "the daily negotiations and property of merchants ought not to depend on subtleties and niceties, but upon rules easily learned and easily retained because they are dictates of common sense drawn from the truth of the case". In most European countries, the principle was that a merchant was bound by his promises, not just his signed legal documents, while English lawyers maintained that a merchant could only be legally bound by documents that he signed. The European principle was based on the assumption of good faith on the part of the merchants, or uberrima fides, something completely lacking in English law. In , Mansfield got a chance to reform the law relating to the assumption of good faith. Carter was the Governor of Fort Marlborough (now Bengkulu), which was built by the British East India Company in Sumatra, Indonesia. He took out an insurance policy with Boehm against the fort's being taken by a foreign enemy. A witness called Captain Tryon testified that Carter knew the fort was built to resist attacks from natives but not European enemies, and the French were likely to attack. The French did attack, and Boehm refused to fulfil the insurance claim. Mansfield decided in favour of Boehm, saying that Carter had failed his duty of uberrima fides. In his judgment Mansfield said that: Insurance is a contract based upon speculation. The special facts, upon which the contingent chance is to be computed, lie most commonly in the knowledge of the insured only; the underwriter trusts to his representation and proceeds upon the confidence that he does not keep back any circumstance in his knowledge, to mislead the underwriter into a belief that the circumstance does not exist, and to induce him to estimate the risque as if it did not exist. Good