of the Bank of England John Francis

“ Nor is Capel Court an exception. When the fate of a jobber depends on the turn which the market may take,—when sorrow or success hangs upon a word,—when family, friends, and fortune are in the balance, and a rumored falsehood may sink or save,—it is not in humanity to resist the temptation; and it has, unhappily, become too general a practice to stop at no invention, and to hesitate at no assertion, which may assist the inventor. From this cause the Stock Exchange is rarely mentioned with that respect which it merits, as the theatre of the most extensive money transactions in the world. ”

“ It is absolutely idle for the Financial Reform Association to think of effectually lowering the taxation of the country while twenty-eight millions are paid for interest; and it is to be feared that great evil will accompany whatever good they may achieve. That there are many offices which might be abolished; that it is a rule in England that the least worked should be best paid; that an extravagant system of barbaric grandeur exists; that the army and the navy, the pulpit and the bar, are conducted unwisely; and that great men are paid great salaries for doing nothing,—are indisputable ”

“ For if the reprisal trade should adjourn from Exchange Alley to Birchin Lane, it may seem to be like the banishing usury from the city of Rome, which transferred it to a Jew at Genoa, a monk at Naples, and a banker at Venice, who, it was said, had no less than seven-and-twenty principalities in Italy mortgaged to them at a time, besides two kingdoms, seven duchies, and the jewels of the crown of France.
Having thus given the blazing characters of three capital sharpers of Great Britain, knaves of lesser magnitude can have no room to shine; the Alley throngs with Jews, jobbers, and brokers ”

“ If they meet with a cull, a young dealer that has money to lay out, they catch him at the door, whisper to him, “Sir, here is a great piece of news, it is not yet public, it is worth a thousand guineas but to mention it; I am heartily glad I met you, but it must be as secret as the black side of your soul, for they know nothing of it yet in the coffee-house; if they should, stock would rise ten per cent. in a moment, and I warrant you South Sea will be 130 in a week’s time after it is known.” ”

“ The more pleasing title of Poyais was given; the Stock Exchange was employed to circulate some bonds for a loan of £200,000, at eighty per cent., on the security of the country; and a land renowned for its inhospitable climate was puffed into a most undeserving celebrity. Every device of human ingenuity was practised. Books were published in which the climate of paradise seemed uncongenial by that of Poyais. The air was soft and balmy; the sun and sky were alike fructifying; the soil yearned to yield its fruits; the water ran over sands of gold. Grain was to grow without sowing. ”

“ Who can answer that a scheme which oppresses the farmer, ruins the manufacturer, breaks the merchant, discourages industry, and reduces fraud to a system, which drains continually a portion of our national wealth away to foreigners, and draws most perniciously the rest of that immense property which was diffused among thousands into the pockets of the few,—who can answer that such a scheme will always endure? The whole art of stock-jobbing, the whole mystery of iniquity mentioned above, rises from this establishment, and is employed about the funds ”

“ The chance, however remote, of gaining a large sum by a small risk, with the feeling of anxious and not unpleasing excitement, rendered lotteries a favorite phase of English gambling; for the voice of the people had not spoken so peremptorily the great truth, that the state must not purchase a nation’s wealth at the price of a nation’s morals. That which a government employs as an instrument of wealth, is sure to be followed by the people to a lower extent, but in a more mischievous manner. ”

“ Death ensued to some from the shock, misery was the lot of others, and frantic confusion once more marked the alleys and the neighbourhood of Capel Court. Consternation reigned paramount, and almost every third man was a defaulter. All foreign securities were without a price; the bankers refused to advance money; the brokers’ checks were first doubted, and then rejected; nothing but bank-notes would be taken; and, with a desperation which will never be forgotten, the jobbers closed their books, refused to transact any business, and waited the result in almost abject despair. ”

“ He immediately took the omnium to other brokers, represented to them an urgent necessity for money, sold it, and having been paid checks for the amount, immediately presented them to the bankers on whom they were drawn, and received the amount in cash. He then went to all whom he knew, or would trust him, borrowed money on the security of his own checks,—a common practice on the Stock Exchange,—with remarkable boldness, remained in London until near the hour when he knew his own draught would be presented and refused, and then left, laden alike with gold and a guilty conscience. ”

“ It is very hard when our statesmen come into a confederacy to bite the people, and when dukes turn stock-jobbers. Yet that this was done is most certain; and what was this but making a property of the power that might be in their hands, the better to bite the people? For if the Parliament appointed £500,000 in tickets, to be given out at a certain rate that was low and reasonable, was it not to encourage the people, on whom the rest of the national burden lies? ”

“ As a member of the senate, he assumed the purity of the patriot, complained of the absence of economy, and declared how much cheaper the public business might be accomplished. He teased the minister; he perplexed the Parliament; he puzzled the government; until, by giving him a job, the patriot was turned into a contractor, and from that hour he marked the public money as his own. If the First Lord of the Treasury were indolent, the contractor availed himself of his sloth; if ignorant, he taught him, and made the country pay for the lesson. ”

“ Minor capitalists, like parasitical plants, clung to him, and were always ready to advance their money in speculations at his bidding. Nothing seemed too gigantic for his grasp; nothing too minute for his notice. His mind was as capable of contracting a loan for millions, as of calculating the lowest possible amount on which a clerk could exist. Like too many great merchants, whose profits were counted by thousands, he paid his assistants the smallest amount for which he could procure them. ”

“ Fordyce. His combinations were as fine, his plans as skilful, as ever. His mind was as perceptive as when he first began; but unexpected facts upset his theories, and the price of the funds would not yield to his combinations. Every one said he deserved to win; but he still continued to lose. Speculation succeeded speculation; and it is remarkable, that, with all his great and continued losses, he retained to the last hour a cool and calm self-possession. After availing himself of every possible resource, his partners were surprised by his absenting himself from the banking-house. ”

“ The general cry against stock-jobbing has been such, and people have been so long and so justly complaining of it as a public nuisance, and, which is still worse, have complained so long without a remedy, that the jobbers, hardened in crime, are at last come to exceed all bounds, and now, if ever, sleeping justice will awake, and take some notice of them, and if it should not now, yet the diligent creatures are so steady to themselves, that they will, some time or other, make it absolutely necessary to the government to demolish them. ”

“ The principal powers of Europe looked with delight upon a struggle between the soldiers of the mother country and the raw recruits of the colony; between discipline on the one side and patriotism on the other; on the entire power of England baffled by men from the pen and from the plough, from the shop and from the counting-house. ”

“ Thomas Gray was the same. What does not England owe to men who bore the burden and the heat of the day in the introduction of projects, which, once household luxuries, they have made household necessities! The cottage of the poor is comforted, the mansion of the rich is gladdened, with works for which projectors were ridiculed and speculators ruined. We cannot cast our eyes around without these works meeting our view. They add a grace to our persons, they cheapen our luxuries, they adorn our homes. ”

“ Liverpool received the manufactures of Manchester at a cheaper rate, and Manchester was supplied with goods from places hitherto comparatively inaccessible. The neighbouring woods and vales were visited by the pale denizen of the factory on the day of rest; and passengers were enabled to travel along that canal which they owed to the patient endurance and undeviating firmness of Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, and to the singular ability of his unrivalled architect, to both of whom personal comfort and public praise were nothing in comparison with the achievement of a great idea. ”