FACTOR is a mercantile agent, who buys and sells the goods of others, and transacts their business on commission. He is in trusted with the management and disposal of the goods, and he buys and sells in his own name, in which particulars consists the main difference between factors and brokers. The chief part of the foreign trade of a country is carried on through the medium of factors, who generally reside at a distance from the merchants or manufacturers who employ them. The common duty of a factor is to receive consignments of goods, to sell them, and to make remittances either in money, bills, or purchased goods, in return; and he is paid by a commission upon the money which passes through his hands. It is usual for a factor to make advances upon the goods consigned to him, for which, and for his com mission, he has a general lien upon all the property of his employer which may at any time be in his bands.
It is the duty of a factor to keep the goods with which he is intrusted free from injury, to keep a clear account of his dealings, and at proper times to transmit it to his employer, with information of all the transactions and liabilities which he has entered into and in curred in the course of his employment, by which his principal can be affected ; also to send him advice of all hills accepted or drawn upon his credit, and generally to act with fidelity to him.
There is another description of factor, who acts under what is called a del credere com mission, where, for an additional per tentage he engages for the solvency of the purchasers of the goods consigned to him. In this case, the factor stands in the relation of a surety for the persons with whom he deals on account of the employer, and he is liable to his em ployer only in ease of their default.