Definition
A French legal term for a bill of lading — the document issued by a carrier acknowledging receipt of goods for transport by sea and setting out the terms under which those goods will be carried. The phrase translates literally as "loading policy" or "loading document." In historical French maritime law, the police de chargement served as the authoritative instrument governing the relationship between shipper, carrier, and consignee, functioning simultaneously as a receipt for cargo, evidence of the contract of carriage, and a document of title to the goods.
Common Confusion
Police de chargement is sometimes loosely equated with any shipping document, but it is specifically the bill of lading, not a charter party (which governs the hire of the entire vessel) or a manifest (which is an administrative inventory of a ship's cargo). In French maritime practice, these instruments had distinct legal functions. English-language sources occasionally conflate police de chargement with lettre de voiture, which is a land carriage equivalent; the two terms are not interchangeable.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical maritime and admiralty sources predating the twentieth century, particularly in materials touching French, Louisiana, or other civil-law-influenced jurisdictions. Researchers working in admiralty law, international trade, or Louisiana legal history are most likely to encounter it.
The principal research trap is treating the term as merely decorative French nomenclature when it signals that a document is governed by French maritime law and the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681 — a foundational text for admiralty practice across the Atlantic world and a direct ancestor of modern maritime codes. Where a historical source cites police de chargement rather than "bill of lading," it is often signaling the French civil-law framework is operative, which carries consequences for how disputes over cargo, freight, and title were resolved.
Louisiana researchers face a particular complexity. Louisiana's hybrid legal system meant that French maritime terminology remained in active use well into the nineteenth century, appearing in parish and commercial court records alongside common-law admiralty language. The same transaction might be documented using French terms in one instrument and English terms in another. A researcher who does not recognize police de chargement as a bill of lading may misread the evidentiary weight of a document or mistake its legal function entirely.
For researchers working in comparative maritime law, the term is also a useful index entry: tracing the Ordonnance de la Marine's treatment of the police de chargement through French commentators and into American admiralty doctrine illustrates how the civil-law bill of lading tradition shaped early U.S. commercial law, even in nominally common-law jurisdictions.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence are in complete agreement: both define police de chargement as the French law equivalent of a bill of lading, with no substantive divergence. Black's adds a direct citation to the Ordonnance de la Marine, Book 3, Title 2 — a reference that is useful precisely because it anchors the term in a specific, verifiable primary source. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is briefer but cross-references the bill of lading entry, implicitly directing the researcher to the fuller treatment there.
What neither source addresses is the doctrinal content of the Ordonnance de la Marine itself or how the police de chargement's functions (receipt, contract evidence, document of title) were understood and enforced in French practice versus their treatment in common-law admiralty courts when disputes arose across jurisdictions. Historical dictionaries treat the term as a simple translation equivalent; researchers needing to understand the substantive rules governing the instrument must go to the Ordonnance itself and to French maritime treatises of the period.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is a creature of French maritime law and its derivatives. Its practical legal relevance in the United States is largely confined to Louisiana and to historical admiralty disputes arising from the pre-nineteenth-century Atlantic trade. In modern practice, the bill of lading governs universally; police de chargement is archival terminology.