public creditor willingly gave up three hundred pounds of irredeemable
stock for one hundred pounds of the company's stock.

[Sidenote: Mania for Speculation.]

And this would have been well, had there been a moral certainty of the
stockholder receiving a dividend of twenty per cent. But there was not
this certainty, nor even a chance of it. Still, in consequence of the
great dividends promised, even as high as fifty per cent., the stock
gradually rose to one thousand per cent. Such was the general mania.
And such was the extent of it, that thirty-seven millions of pounds
sterling were subscribed on the company's books.

And the rage for speculation extended to all other kinds of property;
and all sorts of companies were formed, some of the shares of which
were at a premium of two thousand per cent. There were companies
formed for fisheries, companies for making salt, for making oil, for
smelting metals, for improving the breed of horses, for the planting
of madder, for building ships against pirates, for the importation of
jackasses, for fattening hogs, for wheels of perpetual motion, for
insuring masters against losses from servants. There was one company
for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but no one knew for
what. The subscriber, by paying two guineas as a deposit, was to have
one hundred pounds per annum for every hundred subscribed. It was
declared, that, in a month, the particulars were to be laid open, and
the remainder of the subscription money was then to be paid.
Notwithstanding this barefaced, swindling scheme, two thousand pounds
were received one morning as a deposit. The next day, the proprietor
was not to be found.

Now, in order to stop these absurd speculations, and yet to monopolize
all the gambling in the kingdom, the directors of the South Sea
Company obtained an act from parliament, empowering them to prosecute
all the various bubble companies that were projected. In a few days,
all these bubbles burst. None were found to be buyers. Stock fell to
nothing.

[Sidenote: Bursting of the South Sea Bubble.]

But the South Sea Company made a blunder. The moral effect of the
bursting of so many bubbles was to open the eyes of the nation to the
greatest bubble of all. The credit of the South Sea Company declined.
Stocks fell from one thousand per cent to two hundred in a few days.
All wanted to sell, nobody to buy. Bankers and merchants failed, and
nobles and country gentlemen became