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THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE
At length corruption, like a general flood,
Did deluge all, and avarice creeping on,
Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.
Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks,
Peeress and butler shared alike the box;
And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town,
And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown:
Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms.
--Pope.
The South Sea Company was originated by the celebrated
Harley,
Earl of Oxford, in the year 1711, with the view of restoring
public
credit, which had suffered by the dismissal of the Whig
ministry, and
of providing for the discharge of the army and navy debentures,
and
other parts of the floating debt, amounting to nearly ten
millions
sterling. A company of merchants, at that time without a
name, took
this debt upon themselves, and the government agreed to
secure them,
for a certain period, the interest of six per cent. To provide
for
this interest, amounting to 600,000 pounds per annum, the
duties upon
wines, vinegar, India goods, wrought silks, tobacco, whale-fins,
and
some other articles, were rendered permanent. The monopoly
of the
trade to the South Seas was granted, and the company, being
incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by
which it has
ever since been known. The minister took great credit to
himself for
his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always
called by his
flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece."
Even at this early period of its history, the most visionary
ideas
were formed by the company and the public of the immense
riches of the
eastern coast of South America. Everybody had heard of the
gold and
silver mines of Peru and Mexico; every one believed them
to be
inexhaustible, and that it was only necessary to send the
manufactures
of England to the coast, to be repaid a hundredfold in gold
and silver
ingots by the natives. A report, industriously spread, that
Spain was
willing to concede four ports, on the coasts of Chili and
Peru, for
the purposes of traffic, increased the general confidence;
and for
many years the South Sea Company's stock was in high favour.
