d the interest to be reduced to 4 per cent. It was resolved, on
February 2d, that the proposals were most advantageous to the country.
They were accordingly received, and leave was given to bring in a bill
to that effect.

Exchange Alley was in a fever of excitement. The company's stock, which
had been at 130 the previous day, gradually rose to 300, and continued
to rise with the most astonishing rapidity during the whole time that
the bill in its several stages was under discussion. Sir Robert Walpole
was almost the only statesman in the House who spoke out boldly against
it. He warned them, in eloquent and solemn language, of the evils that
would ensue. It countenanced, he said, "the dangerous practice of
stock-jobbing, and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and
industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to
their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labor for a
prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an
evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of
the stock by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by
promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the
purpose."

The bill was two months in its progress through the House of Commons.
During this time every exertion was made by the directors and their
friends, and more especially by the chairman, the noted Sir John Blunt,
to raise the price of the stock. The most extravagant rumors were in
circulation. Treaties between England and Spain were spoken of whereby
the latter was to grant a free trade to all her colonies; and the rich
produce of the mines of Potosi-la-Paz was to be brought to England until
silver should become almost as plentiful as iron. For cotton and woollen
goods, which could be supplied to them in abundance, the dwellers in
Mexico were to empty their golden mines. The company of merchants
trading to the South Seas would be the richest the world ever saw, and
every hundred pounds invested in it would produce hundreds per annum to
the stockholder. At last the stock was raised by these means to near
400, but, after fluctuating a good deal, settled at 330, at which price
it remained when the bill passed the Commons by a majority of 172
against 55.

Contrary to all expectation South Sea stock fell when the bill received
the royal assent. On April 7th the shares were quoted at 310, and on the
following day at 290. Already