. It continued at this price with some slight
fluctuation, until the company closed its books on June 22d.

It would be needless and uninteresting to detail the various arts
employed by the directors to keep up the price of stock. It will be
sufficient to state that it finally rose to 1000 per cent. It was quoted
at this price in the commencement of August. The bubble was then
full-blown and began to quiver and shake preparatory to its bursting.

Many of the government annuitants expressed dissatisfaction against the
directors. They accused them of partiality in making out the lists for
shares in each subscription. Further uneasiness was occasioned by its
being generally known that Sir John Blunt, the chairman, and some others
had sold out. During the whole of the month of August the stock fell,
and on September 2d it was quoted at 700 only.

Day after day it continued to fall, until it was as low as 400. In a
letter dated September 13th, from Mr. Broderick, M.P., to Lord
Chancellor Middleton, and published in Coxe's _Walpole_, the former
says: "Various are the conjectures why the South Sea directors have
suffered the cloud to break so early. I made no doubt but they would do
so when they found it to their advantage. They have stretched credit so
far beyond what it would bear that specie proves insufficient to support
it. Their most considerable men have drawn out, securing themselves by
the losses of the deluded, thoughtless numbers, whose understandings
have been overruled by avarice and the hope of making mountains out of
mole-hills. Thousands of families will be reduced to beggary. The
consternation is inexpressible--the rage beyond description, and the
case altogether so desperate that I do not see any plan or scheme so
much as thought of for averting the blow; so that I cannot pretend to
guess what is next to be done." Ten days afterward, the stock still
falling, he writes: "The company have yet come to no determination, for
they are in such a wood that they know not which way to turn. By several
gentlemen lately come to town, I perceive the very name of a South Sea
man grown abominable in every country. A great many goldsmiths are
already run off, and more will; daily I question whether one-third, nay,
one-fourth, of them can stand it."

At a general court of the Bank of England, held soon afterward, the
governor informed them of the several meetings that had been held on the
affairs of the South Sea Company,