ward in lending, so strict, so tedious, so inquisitive, and withal so public in their taking securities, that men who are anything tender won't go to them...." "And yet," he continues, "a bank might be very beneficial to this kingdom." To that end he urges governmental restrictions and limitations, -"those limitations being regulated with a proper regard to the ease of trade in general," etc. He would have no one suppose that his discourse is an invective against the Bank of England. He regards that institution as not only profitable to its proprietors but also useful to the Government. Established at a juncture when England's enemies were decrying England's poverty, he declares that the bank became the particular glory of the nation and of its capital city. He then discusses that corporation's defects and suggests remedies, his main conclusion being that one great joint-stock organization could and should "go through the whole business of the kingdom," declaring this to be practicable, because "almost all the country business would be managed by running bills, and those the longest abroad of any, their distance keeping them out, to the increasing the credit, and consequently the stock of the bank." Bearing in mind the fact that these suggestions were published in 1697, one cannot but regard the author of "Robinson Crusoe" as much more than a romancer. In clarity of statement, who has ever given a better definition than this-from the essay on Banks? "A bank is only a great stock of money put together, to be employed by some of the subscribers in the name of the rest, for the benefit of the whole." The story of the "South Sea Bubble," covering the years 1711-1720, is told in subsequent pages of this book. It is interesting to note in passing the extent to which the greatest gambling scheme recorded in history affected all classes and conditions of men. One of the principal promoters was Sir Joseph Blunt, a pious capitalist, whom Pope thus satirizes: "God cannot Love," says Blunt, with tearless eyes, Matthew Prior, poet and diplomatist, in 1720, writes: “I am tired of politics, and lost in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves and the madness of the people are justly put together. It is all wilder than St. Anthony's dream." John Gay, the poet, unfortunately received from a would-be benefactor a present of £1,000 in "Bubble" stock. He had already invested to the limit of his borrowing capacity. Had he sold at the "psychological moment," he would have cleared over £20,000. He asked advice of his friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, and was told to sell, but his cupidity got the better of his judgment; he held his stock and lost all. Arbuthnot was a shrewder counselor than financier. He held on to his own stock, and lost £2,000. Thomas Guy, a miserly banker, just off Lombard Street, wiser than the literary men of the period, saw the opportune moment and sold, clearing from a half to a million pounds. To the South Sea Bubble London is indebted for the beneficent charity on the Surrey side of London Bridge, still known as Guy's Hospital.* Light is thrown upon this interesting period by the published correspondence of the Windham brothers. Early in the financially tragic year 1720, James Windham naïvely wrote his brother, Ashe: "I grow rich so fast that I like stock jobbing of all things. Since the South Sea have declared what they give to the annuitants, stock has risen vastly. South Sea has this day been * Martin-Stories of Banks and Bankers, London, 1865. Pryings Among Private Papers, by the author of A Life of Sir Kenelm Digby, London, 1905. 460; they offer 50 per cent. for the refusal at 450 for the opening. I think it will be 500 before the shutting, I mean the stock." Later in the year this writer's views of stock jobbing underwent a violent change. On November 26, William wrote Ashe: "Poor Jimmy's affairs are most irretrievable, and as to the misery which I think will attend this affair, we do not see the 100th part. Almost all one knows or sees are upon the very brink of destruction, and these who were reckoned to have done well yesterday are found stark nought to-day." As usual, the sympathizers with the victims of wild-cat speculation laid the blame entirely upon "the directors." William adds: "These devills of directors have ruined more men's fortunes in this world, than I hope old Belzebub will do souls for the next." In this opinion the victim naturally coincides with his sympathizers. Poor Jimmy grimly writes, January 5, 1721: "The directors have brought themselves into bankruptcy by being cunning, artful knaves; I have come into the same state for being a very silly fool." The word "usury," now one of opprobrium, was, as the reader of the Bible and of history is aware, a synonym for that eminently respectable word "interest." Jeremy Bentham, in his fam ous "Defence of Usury," employs the term in the sense in which Jesus used it in the parable: "Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then, at my coming, I should have received mine own with usury.' Bentham, seeking for a reason for the for the unpopularity of the money-lender, finds it in the fact that "the children who have eaten their cake are the natural enemies of the children who have theirs. While the money is hoped for, and for a short time after it has been received, he who lends it is a friend and benefactor: by the time the money is spent, and the evil hour of reckoning is come, the benefactor is found to haye changed his nature, and to have put on the tyrant and the oppressor. It is an oppression for a man to reclaim his own money; it is none to keep it from him." This psychological fact Bentham finds verified on the stage. "It is the business of the dramatist to study, and to conform to, the humours and passions of those on the pleasing of whom he depends for his success. Now I question whether, among all the instances in which a borrower and a lender of money have been brought together, upon the stage, from the days of Thespis to the present, there ever was one in which the former was not recommended to favour in |