he bill was read a third
time on April 7th, and received the Royal assent on June 11th. The
King's speech, delivered that day at the close of the session, declared
that "the good foundation you have prepared this session for the payment
of the national debts, and the discharge of a great part of them without
the least violation of the public faith, will, I hope, strengthen more
and more the union I desire to see among all my subjects, and make our
friendship yet more valuable to all foreign Powers."

The immediate result of the Parliamentary authority thus given to what
was purely a bubble scheme was to bring upon the Legislature a perfect
deluge of petitions from all manner of projectors. Patents and
monopolies were sought for the carrying on of fisheries in Greenland and
various other regions; for the growth, manufacture and sale of hemp,
flax, and cotton; for the making of sail-cloth; for a general insurance
against fire; for the {192} planting and rearing of madder to be used by
dyers; for the preparing and curing of Virginia tobacco for snuff, and
making it into the same within all his Majesty's dominions. Schemes such
as these were comparatively reasonable; but there were others of a
different kind. Petitions were gravely submitted to Parliament praying
for patents to be granted to the projectors of enterprises for trading in
hair; for the universal supply of funerals to all parts of Great Britain;
for insuring and increasing children's fortunes; for insuring masters and
mistresses against losses from the carelessness or misconduct of
servants; for insuring against thefts and robberies; for extracting
silver from lead; for the transmutation of silver into malleable fine
metal; for buying and fitting out ships to suppress pirates; for a wheel
for perpetual motion, and--with which project, perhaps, we may close our
list of specimens--"for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage,
but nobody to know what it is." Of course some of these projects were
mere vulgar swindles. Even in that season of marvellous projection it is
not to be supposed that the inventors of the last-mentioned scheme had
any serious belief in its efficacy. The author of the project for the
perpetual-motion wheel was, we take it, a sincere personage and
enthusiast. His scheme has been coming up again and again before the
world since his time; and we have known good men who would have staked
all they held dear in life upon the possibilit