280 GIBBON. 



representatives. Whatever may have been the unpopu- 

 larity of the original Septennial Act in those Jacobite 

 times, the violence done to the South Sea Directors was 

 amply justified by the public voice. Complaints were 

 indeed made, and loudly ; but it was of the mercy shewn 

 to those whom the fury of disappointed speculators 

 called " monsters," " traitors," " the cannibals of Change 

 Alley." Their blood was called for in a thousand 

 quarters ; and the shame of the Parliament was loudly 

 proclaimed to be, that no one had been hanged for the 

 crime of having engaged in an unsuccessful adventure. 

 So regardless of all reason and justice, and even common 

 sense, is the accursed thirst of gold that raises the daemon 

 of commercial gambling! 



When Mr. Gibbon's fortune, amounting to 106,000/., 

 was confiscated, two sums being proposed as his allow- 

 ance, fifteen thousand and ten thousand, the smaller was 

 immediately adopted; but his life being prolonged for 

 sixteen years, his industry was so fruitful that he left 

 nearly as large a fortune as the violence of Parliament 

 had robbed him of. Dying in 1736, he left the his- 

 torian's father, his son, and two daughters, one of whom 

 married Mr. Elliott of Cornwall, afterwards Lord Elliott. 

 The celebrated author of the ' Serious Call/ William 

 Law, lived as tutor in the family, and is supposed to 

 have designed the son by the name of Flatus in that 

 popular work. A lady of the family still settled in 

 Kent, married Mr. Yorke Gibbon, the father of Lord 

 Hardwick; and by another, the historian was related to 

 the Actons, who afterwards settled in Naples. 



The estates left by the Director were situate at Putney 

 in Surrey, and in Hampshire, near Petersfield, in which 



