as to allow free trade to England in
four ports on the Pacific, and three vessels besides slavers were to go
to the isthmus every year--concessions never promised nor intended by
Philip the Fifth. The slave trade was a fact, and according to the
statements it would give fabulous profits.

[Illustration: MAP OF TERRA FIRMA.

(_From Gottfried's "Reisen."_)]

Visions of boundless wealth now floated before the eyes of the English
people, and they at once began to rival the French in their madness, as
they had in their colonisation. The English Government was ready to make
every possible concession because it wanted to be rid of the incubus of
thirty millions, and therefore did nothing to check the Company. As the
stock was issued it was at once bought up, and then sold again at a
considerable advance. Everybody expected to make fortunes, therefore
they must get shares at any price. Rumours of peace with Spain, and
great concessions that would bring all the riches of Peru and Mexico
into their coffers, roused them still more. Gold would soon be as
plentiful as copper, and silver as iron. The shareholders would be the
richest people the world ever saw, and every share would give dividends
of hundreds per cent. per annum. The bill making the Government
concessions was passed in April, 1720, when the stock was quoted at L310
for a hundred pound share. Strange to say, it then began to fall, but
the projectors put forth a rumour that England was about to exchange
Gibraltar for a port in Peru, and confidence was restored at once. So
great was the increased demand that another million was issued at L300
per L100 share, and these were so much run after that the fortunate
owners were at once offered double what they had paid. Then another
million was offered at L400, and in a few hours applications were
received for a million and a half.

People were so eager to invest their money that they swallowed almost
any bait thrown to them. Hundreds of bubble companies hovered on the
outskirts of the parent, among them one for settling the barren islands
of Blanco and Sal Tortugas, another to colonise Santa Cruz, and a third
to fit out vessels for the suppression of piracy. But perhaps the most
absurd was "a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage,
but nobody to know what it is."

Near their highest point the South Sea Shares were sold at L890, but so
many wanted to sell at that price that they soon fell to L640. This p