h as often as he touched the earth; Hercules subdued him at last
by holding him up in the air and strangling him there. Suspended a
while in the air, according to the same principle, our directors, he
admonishes the country, will be properly tamed and dealt with. Many
public enemies of the directors gave themselves credit for moderation
and humanity on the ground that they would not have the culprits
tortured to death, but merely executed in the ordinary way.

Walpole set himself first of all to restore public credit. {203} His
object was not so much the punishment of fraudulent directors as the
tranquillizing of the public mind and the subsidence of national panic.
He proposed one measure in the first instance to accomplish this end;
but that not being sufficiently comprehensive, he introduced another
bill, which was finally adopted by both Houses of Parliament. Briefly
described, this scheme so adjusted the financial affairs of the South
Sea Company that five millions of the seven which the directors had
agreed to pay the public were remitted; the encumbrances to the Company
were cleared off to a certain extent by the confiscation of the estates
of the fraudulent directors; the credit of the Company's bonds was
maintained; thirty-three pounds six shillings and eightpence per cent.
were divided among the proprietors, and two millions were reserved
towards the liquidation of the national debt. The Company was
therefore put into a position to carry out its various public
engagements, and the panic was soon over. Many of the proprietors of
the Company complained bitterly of the manner in which they had been
treated by Walpole. The lobbies of the House of Commons and all the
adjacent places were crowded by proprietors of the short annuities and
other redeemable popular deeds; men and women who, as the contemporary
accounts tell us, "in a rude and insolent manner demanded justice of
the members as they went into the House," and put into their hands a
paper with the words written on it, "Pray do justice to the annuitants
who lent their money on Parliamentary security." "The noisy
multitude," we are told, "were particularly rude to Mr. Comptroller,
tearing part of his coat as he passed by." The Speaker of the House
was informed that a crowd of people had got together in a riotous and
tumultuous manner in the lobbies and passages, and he ordered "that the
Justices of the Peace for the City of Westminster do immediately