THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 4P, 



the privilege of supplying the colonies with negroes for thirty years, and of sending ones 

 a year one vessel " limited both as to tonnage and value of cargo " to trade with Mexico, 

 Peru, and Chili, the king to enjoy one-fourth of the profits. On these hard conditions 

 and slender privileges was the great Bubble blown into popular esteem. Rumours of 

 commercial treaties between England and Spain were circulated, whereby the latter was to 

 grant free trade to all her colonies ; the rich produce of the Potosi mines " was to be 

 brought to England until silver should become almost as plentiful as iron. For cotton 

 and woollen goods, with which we could supply them in abundance, the dwellers in Mexico 

 were to empty their golden mines. The company of merchants trading to the South Seas 

 would be the richest the world ever saw, and every hundred pounds invested would produce 

 hundreds per annum to the stockholder."* These and still more lying statements were 

 spread in every direction. The stock rose like a rocket. And, so far as the present writer 

 can discover, the first voyage of the one annual ship, not made till 1717, six years after the 

 first establishment of the company, was also its last ! The following year the trade was 

 suppressed by the rupture with Spain. 



" It seemed at that time as if the whole nation had turned stock-jobbers. Exchange 

 Alley was every day blocked up by crowds, and Cornhill was impassable for the number 

 of carriages. Everybody came to purchase stock. ' Every fool aspired to be a knave/ In 

 the words of a ballad published at the time, and sung about the streets 



'"Then stars and garters did appear 



Among the meaner rabble ; 

 To buy and sell, to see and hear 

 Tho Jews and Gentiles squabble. 



' The greatest ladies thither came, 



And plied in chariots daily; 

 Or pawned their jewels for a sum 

 To venture in the Alley.' " 



Not merely South Sea stock, but schemes of even a wilder nature now deluged the market. 

 It would seem incredible, but it is vouched for on good authority, that one adventurer 

 started "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know 

 what .it is," and in one day sold a thousand shares, the deposit on which was 2 per share. 

 He thought it prudent to decamp with the 2,000, and was no more heard of. Mackay 

 publishes a list of eighty-six bubble companies, which were eventually declared illegal 

 and abolished. But the South Sea Bubble was a Triton among these minnows, and the 

 directors, having once tasted the profits of their scheme by the rapid rise of its shares, 

 kept their emissaries at work. Nor indeed were they much needed, for every person 

 interested in the stock endeavoured to draw a knot of listeners round him in 'Change Alley, 

 or its purlieus, to whom he expatiated on the treasures of tfye South American Seas. Then 

 came the rumour that Gibraltar was to be exchanged for certain places on the coast of 

 Peru. Instead of paying a tribute to the King of Spain, the company would be able to 

 trade freely, and send as many ships as they liked. 



* One of the very best .accounts of the South Sea Bubble is to be found in Charles Mackay's " Memoirs 

 of Extraordinary Popular Delusions," frequently quoted above. 



