66

this time, who, he says, and with truth, put aside the ordinary forms of justice in the punishment of the criminals. But was this an ordinary case? Could any statesman or lawgiver have anticipated such conduct as was proved against such men? A gigantic system of fraud, which shakes the nation to its centre, is not to be looked upon as a petty larceny. It would be as reasonable to ask a commander in time of civil war to wait for the decision of the County Assizes before he determined on the fate of his prisoners. We can, accordingly, well understand the feeling of Lord Molesworth, even whilst we condemn the vindictive length to which he carried it. That noble lord is reported to have said, in his place in parliament, that it was stated by some that there was no law to punish the Directors of the South Sea Company, who were justly looked upon as the authors of the present misfortune of the state. In his opinion they ought, upon this occasion, to follow the example of the ancient Romans, who, having no law against parricide, because their law supposed no son could be so unnaturally wicked as to imbrue his hands in his father's blood, made a law to punish this heinous crime as soon as it was committed. They adjudged the guilty wretch to be sewn in a sack, and thrown alive into the Tiber. He looked upon the contrivers and executors of the villanous South Sea scheme as the parricides of their country, and should be satisfied to see them tied, in like manner, in sacks, and thrown into the Thames." This may serve also as a specimen of the feeling of the House and the country. Two objects now engaged attention: one, the re-cstablishment of the public credit in the best possible manner, the other, the punishment of the men who had brought that credit to its low state. The first Walpole undertook. His ultimate measures consisted essentially of the grafting upon the Bank of England stocks, and the stocks of the East India Company, large portions of the stock held by the South Sea Company, and remitting the bonus of seven millions which the latter had engaged to pay. The second-the punishment of the criminal authors of all the mischief-needed no leader: there were but too many ready to proceed like Lord Molesworth to undue lengths in that matter. After some hot disputes, the following measures were adopted: A bill was passed restraining the Directors from leaving the kingdom, and obliging them upon oath to deliver in a strict account of their estates. Next, a Commitee of Secrecy was appointed to examine the Company's accounts and other papers. Immediately after this, intelligence reached the House that Knight, the cashier, had absconded, taking with him a register called the Green Book.' The excitement was now greater than ever. The Commons ordered the doors of the House to be locked, and the keys laid upon the table, when General Ross, one of the Committee of Secrecy, acquainted them that they had already discovered a train of the deepest villainy and fraud that Hell had ever contrived to ruin a nation. Two thousand pounds reward was offered that night for the apprehension of the cashier, and some of the Directors were arrested, including Gibbon's grandfather and Sir John Blunt.

Our space will only allow us to give a summary of the astounding discoveries made by this committee. They stated at the outset that the Company's books they had seen were full of false entries, blanks, erasures, and alterations, and others were missing or destroyed. They had, however, been able to detect the sale of ficti

ness.

tious stock (in the mode before pointed out) to the amount of at least 1,200,000!. ; they had found that Charles Stanhope, Esq., the Secretary of the Treasury, had received a real profit on his assignment of fictitious stock of 250,000%, through the medium of Sir George Caswall and Co., but that his name had been altered to Stangape; that Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had accounts of profits evidently derived in a similar manner, with different brokers and merchants, to the enormous amount of 794,451.! James Craggs, the Secretary of State, died, professedly of the small-pox, at the very time of the publication of the report. Stanhope was first proceeded against, who escaped by a majority of three, on account of his relationship to the much-esteemed Earl of Stanhope, who had been killed just before by this altogether melancholy busiIn a discussion in the Lords the blood rushed to his head, and the next day he was a corpse. Aislabie's case followed Stanhope's, whose case was so bad that scarcely any defence was offered. He was expelled the House, sent a prisoner from thence to the Tower, and ordered to make out a statement of his estate for the benefit of the stockholders of the company. No sooner was this result known than London presented one universal blaze of bonfires. Sir George Caswall was next expelled the House, and ordered to refund the 250,000l. paid to Stanhope. The Earl of Sunderland was acquitted by a majority of 233 to 172, and demonstrations of a very opposite kind marked the dissatisfaction of the people. The same day the elder Craggs, whose case was coming before the House on the morrow, took poison. We need not further follow the consideration of the Directors' cases individually: all were gone through, and at the conclusion their entire estates confiscated, amounting to above two millions, for the benefit of their victims, with the exception of a small allowance left to each. Sir John Blunt, for instance, had 50007. out of 183,000/; Sir John Fellowes 10,000/. out of 243,000/ Now we ask, reverting to what has been before stated, was not this substantial justice? It has been urged that no consideration was paid to the fact that some of the Directors left off poorer than they began; we do not think the circumstance deserved any consideration. Is the character of fraud lessened by the common fact that those who live by it often end in defrauding themselves? The real point to be observed is, Were any of these Directors innocent of the essential parts of the fraud in question? The contrary is known to have been the case. Upon the whole, it appears to us, considering that no one was injured during the popular frenzy in life or limb, that no one was left to the beggary he had been the means of inflicting upon countless families, and that no one suffered the more degrading penalties daily visited upon crimes infinitely less infamous, the result, as far as the Directors of the South-Sea Company were concerned, is creditable rather than otherwise to the national character. The loss of the stock-holders was mitigated in several ways. A computation being made of the stock of the Company it was found to amount to 37,800,000l., of which the part belonging to individual proprietors was 24,500,000.; the remainder being in the Company's own possession, and forming the profit they had made during the mania. Eight millions of the latter were taken from the Company and divided among the individual proprietors, making a dividend of about 331. 6s. 8d. We have already said that above two millions

from the confiscated estates were also added to the proprietors' stock, and still further helped to alleviate their loss. Money borrowed from the Company on the pledge of South Sea stock, during the high prices, was now allowed to be paid back at the rate of ten pounds only for each hundred.

Of course, no measures within the scope of possibility could satisfy the losers; who, whilst Walpole was carrying his plans through the House, thronged the lobbies, exhibiting their excitement in violent outcries and gestures. On the day of the second reading, the proprietors of the short annuities and other redeemable debts completely filled the place, demanding justice of the members as they passed, and putting written and printed papers into their hands, with the view of showing that they ought not to lose any portion of their money; which, to say the least of it, had been most imprudently expended. The tumult became so great that the House could not proceed to business. The Justices of the Peace for Westminster were called in, and the Riot Act was read, in order to disperse the assemblage; many of whom called out, "You first pick our pockets, and then send us to gaol for complaining." On the conclusion of the business, Parliament was prorogued with a speech of a consolatory tone, but not very well calculated to assuage the national anger. In our list of the persons about the Court who received assignments of stock we have before seen the names of the King's mistresses included. We have also noticed the Prince of Wales's profitable, however brief, connexion with one of the bubbles. What, then, must the nation have thought, when, seeing this, and suspecting much more, they read the following passage?" The common calamity," said the King, " occasioned by the wicked execution of the South Sea scheme, was become so very great before your meeting, that the providing proper remedies for it was very difficult; but it is a great comfort to me to observe that the public credit begins to recover. . . . . I have great compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and a just indignation against the guilty; and have readily given my assent to such bills as you have presented to me for punishing the authors of our late misfortunes, and for obtaining the restitution and satisfaction due to those who have been injured by them." The Duchess of Kendal, however, remained a Duchess; and, with the other foreign favourites, still appeared at the English Court, to excite the not unnatural jealousy of the English people.

It is pleasant to turn from the narration of events like these, so full of wild excitement, yet, at the same time, so destitute of everything in the shape of high principles or great passions, to such recollections of the building itself the South Sea House-as Charles Lamb has left us; when as yet "Lloyd's" had not intruded upon its silence, and made the great hall wonder whether a new South Sea Company was getting up for the edification of the nineteenth century. Still one might fancy that even underwriters respect the melancholy reflective solitude of the place, gliding in and out as they do from the small alley at the side, whilst the great entrance gapes as wide, and apparently as needlessly, as ever. They remember, no doubt, they are but tenants of the hour. The new Exchange will again rise from its ashes, already the notes of preparation are sounding,—and probably once more the South Sea House will assume its old aspect-"a desolation, something like Balclutha's." The wind

that has for the moment resuscitated the face of the sleeping waters will have subsided. The moths will again batten upon the obsolete ledgers and daybooks. The idle or merely contemplative will once more feel the charm of its quiet-the coolness-the cessation from business-the indolence, almost cloistral, which Elia found so delightful; or seek to " unveil some of the mysteries of the tremendous hoax, whose extent the petty speculators of our day look back upon with the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern Conspiracy, contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. Peace to the manes of the Bubble!"

SMITHFIELD, where the great and only cattle-market of the metropolis is held, is not a place with which the inhabitants of London are very familiar, excepting as a thoroughfare. The grazier from Essex, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, or Lincolnshire, is better acquainted with the spot. The inns and shops in its vicinity are for his accommodation, and exist almost independent of the surrounding population. Smithfield and its immediate precincts may in fact be regarded in the same light as a market-town, thriving upon the industry of a class of customers who resort to it from the country. Some of the shops in the neighbourhood have been used for the same kind of business for above a century; and the customers who now frequent them go there partly because the generation before them did so, and because the experience of years has given the shopkeepers an intimate knowledge of the wants of that portion of the community with which they deal. Smithfield has its banking-house too; and when we know that property to the amount of 5,000,000l. a-year changes hands in the market, we may easily conceive that such an establishment, isolated as it is, is quite essential. Take away the market, and the industry which it has called into existence would be under the necessity of transferring itself elsewhere. But we will glance at the past rather than anticipate the future.

Situated at a little distance from the city walls, Smithfield, in the twelfth century, was a spot to which the citizens resorted to practise the sports peculiar to the

VOL. II.

X