plained to Swift: I am tired of politics, and lost in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves, and the madness of the people, were justly put together. I can send you no news that holds either connection or sense. It is all wilder than St. Anthony's dream.'1

1 There is also extant a letter from Prior to the Earl of Oxford, dated Wimpole, December 23, 1720: I am frightened with the roaring of the South Sea, and tired with the madness of the people.'-Portland MSS., V., 611.

CHAPTER X

The Fate of the Directors and their

THE

Associates

MARCH-APRIL, 1721

HE second Report of the Committee of Secrecy was presented to the House of Commons on February 25, and it was then agreed that the case of Charles Stanhope should be taken into consideration three days later. The charges against him were two in number: The first, that £10,000 South Sea stock was taken in for his benefit, by Robert Knight, without any valuable consideration; and that the difference arising by the advanced price thereof was paid him out of the cash of the South Sea Company; the second, that Elias Turner and Co. had bought £50,000 stock at a low price of the South Sea Company, in the name and for the benefit of Charles Stanhope, the difference of the advanced price whereof, amounting to £250,000, had been paid to the said Charles Stanhope by Sir George Caswell and Co. For the defence, as regards the first count of the indictment, Sir John Blunt said that he could not be sure that the letter (shown him by Knight purporting to come from Stanhope desiring him to take £10,000 stock for him) was genuine, nor did he know what had become of it; while, as regards the second count, Sawbridge and Turner declared that they had used his name without his knowledge. Stanhope,