the principle that the prosperity of a nation is increased
in proportion to the quantity of money in circulation; and that as no
State can have gold enough for all its commercial transactions,
paper-money may be issued to an unlimited extent, and {194} its full
value maintained without its being convertible at pleasure into hard
cash. This supposed principle has been proved again and again to be a
mere fallacy and paradox; but it always finds enthusiastic believers who
have plausible arguments in its support. It appears, indeed, to have a
singular fascination for some persons in all times and communities. It
might seem an obvious truism that under no possible conditions can people
in general be got to give as much for a promise to pay as for a certain
and instant payment; and yet this truism would have to be proved a
falsehood in order to establish a basis for such a project as that of
Law. Even were the basis to be established, the project would then have
to be worked fairly and honestly out, which was not done either in the
case of the Mississippi Company or of the South Sea Company. If each had
been founded on a true financial principle, each was worked in a false
and fraudulent way. At its best the South Sea Company in its later
development would have been a bubble. Worked as it actually was, it
proved to be a swindle. A committee of secrecy was appointed by the
House of Commons to inquire into the condition of the Company. The
committee found that false and fictitious entries had been made in the
Company's books; that leaves had been torn out; that some books had been
destroyed altogether, and that others had been carried off and secreted.
The vulgar arts of the card-sharper and the thimble-rigger had been
prodigally employed to avert detection and ruin by the directors of a
Company which was promoted and protected by ministers of State and by the
favorites of the King.

[Sidenote: 1720--Houghton]

Some idea of the wide-spread nature of the disaster which was inflicted
by the wreck of the Company may be formed from a rapid glance at some of
the petitions for redress and relief which were presented to the House of
Commons. We find among them petitions from the counties of Hertford,
Dorset, Essex, Buckingham, Derby; the cities of Bristol, Exeter, Lincoln;
the boroughs of Oakhampton, Amersham, Bedford, Chipping Wycombe, {195}
Abingdon, Sudbury, East Retford, Evesham, Newark-upon-Trent, Newbury, and
many ot