hundred to about four hundred is in some measure appeased. The Princes of the Blood being joined with the Parliament of Paris, the Regent is forced to yield to their representations, and they are now finding out means to give a currency to money, and to make provision that the people who were forced into the stocks and compelled to take bank bills may have their effects secured to them. Law is removed from the management of the revenue, and put to inspect his own invented Bank and Company.'

1

The trouble in France was very real. Reckless speculation had been the order of the day, and credit was so far strained beyond recovery that on May 27 the Bank Royale was compelled to suspend cash payments. In obedience to the popular clamour, Law, so recently the idol alike of society and of the mob, was removed from the post of Comptroller-General, but was appointed Intendant-General of Commerce and Director of the Bank. Nothing, however, could avert the crash. As is their wont, our neighbours indulged in epigram:

'Lundi, j'achetai des actions;

Mardi, je gagnai des millions;

Mercredi, j'arrangerai mon ménage ;
Jeudi, je pris un équipage;

Vendredi, je m'en fus en bal,

Et Samedi, à l'Hôpital;'

and a light-hearted wag suggested an epitaph for the financier :

'Ci gît cet Ecossais célèbre,

Ce calculateur sans égal,
Qui, par les régles de l'algèbre,

A mis la France a l'Hôpital.'

The ruin was widespread, and presently Law had to fly the country, after his house had been attacked and 1 Portland MMS., V., 598.

he had been compelled, to seek refuge in the Palais Royale. In December he was at Brussels, and there received, and refused, an offer to go to Russia to undertake the management of its finances. In the following year he paid a visit to England, where he stayed awhile, having earlier received a pardon for the death of Beau' Wilson. He was presented to the King, and met many men interested in the problems of finance. 'Though I was no stranger to Law's character, yet I did not grudge a bottle of wine, for the sake of a little conversation with one who has made so much noise in the world,' Dr. William Stratford1 wrote to Edward Harley, October 9, 1722. 'He spent the evening with me. I put him upon the talking of his own affairs, and he entered into them very readily. He seemed to take it as a great reflection on him, as he well might, that any one should think our South Sea scheme to have been projected on the plan of his Mississippi. I perceive he takes our projectors to be great bunglers.' In 1725 Law went to Italy, where four years later he died at Venice in comparative poverty.

The optimism of the people at home was, however, unperturbable, and it largely counteracted the effect in this country of the crisis in France. They would not listen to warnings, nor would they weigh possible consequences. The demon of stock-jobbing is the genius of this place,' Edward Harley wrote to Lord Oxford from London, June 25. This fills all hearts, tongues and thoughts, and nothing is so like Bedlam as the

、

1 Dr. William Stratford, son of Dr. Nicholas Stratford (successively warden of Manchester College and Bishop of Chester), and godson of Thomas Harley, was Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Previous to his appointment to the canonry he was chaplain to Robert Harley, afterwards first Earl of Oxford. 2 Portland MSS., VII., 335.

present humour which has seized all parties, Whigs, Tories, Jacobites, Papists, and all sects. No one is satisfied with even exorbitant gains, but every one thirsts for more, and all this founded upon the machine of paper credit supported by imagination. This is so overstretched that it is no secret it is in the power of France and Holland to draw away every shilling in England. If this fatal hour should come, which in all probability will, no earthquake can produce a more terrible convulsion.' 1

The great stock-market was in Exchange, or 'Change, Alley, a broad, well-paved place, by the Royal Exchange. At one time, as Strype states, frequented by a very considerable concourse of merchants, sea-faring men, and other traders,' it was now given over almost exclusively to dealers in stocks and shares. It contained the famous coffee-houses, Garraway's (often written Garway's) and Jonathan's. To Garraway's Swift refers in The South Sea Project,' and Defoe mentions it in 1722 in his 'Journey through England': 'The Royal Exchange is the resort of all the trading part of this city, foreign and domestic, from half an hour after one till near three in the afternoon; but the better sort generally meet in Exchange Alley a little before, at those celebrated coffee-houses, called Garraway's, Robins', and Jonathan's. In the first, the people of quality, who have business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens frequent. In the second, the foreign bankers, and often even foreign ministers; and in the third, the buyers and sellers of stock.' So early as 1709, Jonathan's is described in the Tatler as the general mart for stock-jobbers'; and two years later, Mr. Spectator, in his first number, remarks, 'I have 1 Portland MSS., V., 599.

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