ench and
English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of
gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the
hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four
feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious
delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in
America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and
silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy
Europeans were equally crazy about the rich merchandise which they made
sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.

In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the
unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea,
caused the English South Sea bubble.

A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of
France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more
gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law's Mississippi
scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I
think, the greatest business humbug of history.

Law was a Scotchman, shrewd and able, a really good financier for those
days, but vicious, a gambler, unprincipled, and liable to wild schemes.
He had possessed a good deal of property, had traveled and gambled all
over Europe, was witty, entertaining, and capital company, and had
become a favorite with the Duke of Orleans and other French nobles. When
the Duke became Regent of France at the death of Louis XIV, in 1715,
that country was horribly in debt, and its people in much misery, owing
to the costly wars and flaying taxations of the late King. When,
therefore, Law came to Paris with a promising scheme of finance in his
hand, the Regent was particularly glad to see him, both as financier and
as friend.

The Regent quickly fell in with Law's plans; and in the spring of 1716,
the first step--not, however, so intended at the time--toward the
Mississippi Scheme was taken. This was, the establishment by royal
authority of the banking firm of Law & Co., consisting of Law and his
brother. This bank, by a judicious organization and issue of paper
money, quickly began to help the distressed finances of the kingdom, and
to invigorate trade and commerce. This success, which seems to have been
an entirely sound and legitimate business success, made one sadly
mistaken but very deep impression upon the ignora