THE ANATOMY OF EXCHANGE ALLEY; OR, A SYSTEM OF STOCK-JOBBING:

PROVING THAT SCANDALOUS TRADE, AS IT IS NOW CARRIED ON, TO BE KNAVISH IN ITS PRIVATE PRACTICE, AND TREASON IN ITS PUBLIC.[13]

The general cry against stock-jobbing has been such, and people have been so long and so justly complaining of it as a public nuisance, and, which is still worse, have complained so long without a remedy, that the jobbers, hardened in crime, are at last come to exceed all bounds, and now, if ever, sleeping justice will awake, and take some notice of them, and if it should not now, yet the diligent creatures are so steady to themselves, that they will, some time or other, make it absolutely necessary to the government to demolish them.

I know they upon all occasions laugh at the suggestion, and have the pride to think it impracticable to restrain them; and one of the top of the function the other day, when I casually told him that, if they went on, they would make it absolutely necessary to the legislature to suppress them, returned, that he believed it was as absolutely necessary for them to do it now as ever it could be. But how will they do it? It is impossible, said he; but if the government takes credit, their funds should come to market; and while there is a market, we will buy and sell. There is no effectual way in the world, says he, to suppress us but this, viz., that the government should first pay all the public debts, redeem all the funds, and dissolve all the charters, viz. Bank, South Sea, and East India, and buy nothing upon trust, and then, indeed, says he, they need not hang the stock-jobbers, for they will be apt to hang themselves.

I must confess, I in part agree that this is an effectual way; but I am far from thinking it the only way to deal with a consideration of usurers, who, having sold the whole nation to usury, keep the purse-strings of poor and rich in their hands, which they open and shut as they please.

But before I come to the needful ways for restraining those people, I think it will be of some service to expose their practices to common view, that the people may see a little what kind of dealers they are.

And first, they have this peculiar to them, and in which they outdo all the particular pieces of public knavery that ever I met with in the world, viz., that they have nothing to say for it themselves; they have, indeed, a particular stock of hardware, as the braziers call it, in their faces, to bear them out in it; but if you talk to them of their occupation, there is not a man but will own it is a complete system of knavery; that it is a trade founded in fraud, born of deceit, and nourished by trick, cheat, wheedle, forgeries, falsehoods, and all sorts of delusions; coining false news, this way good, that way bad; whispering imaginary terrors, frights, hopes, expectations, and then preying upon the weakness of those whose imaginations they have wrought upon, whom they have either elevated or depressed. If they meet with a cull, a young dealer that has money to lay out, they catch him at the door, whisper to him, “Sir, here is a great piece of news, it is not yet public, it is worth a thousand guineas but to mention it; I am heartily glad I met you, but it must be as secret as the black side of your soul, for they know nothing of it yet in the coffee-house; if they should, stock would rise ten per cent. in a moment, and I warrant you South Sea will be 130 in a week’s time after it is known.” “Well,” says the weak creature, “pr’ythee, dear Tom, what is it?” “Well, really, Sir, I will let you into the secret, upon your honor to keep it till you hear it from other hands; why, it is this,—the Pretender is certainly taken, and is carried prisoner to the castle of Milan; there they have him fast. I assure you, the government had an express of it from my Lord St——s, within this hour.” “Are you sure of it?” says the fish, who jumps eagerly into the net. “Sure of it! why, if you take your coach and go up to the secretaries’ office, you may be satisfied of it yourself, and be down again in two hours, and, in the mean time, I will be doing something, though it is but little, till you return.”

Away goes the gudgeon with his head full of wildfire, and a squib in his brain, and, coming to the place, meets a croney at the door, who ignorantly confirms the report, and so sets fire to the mine; for, indeed, the cheat came too far to be balked at home; so that, without giving himself time to consider, he hurries back full of the delusions, dreaming of nothing but of getting a hundred thousand pounds, or purchase two; and even this money was to be gotten only upon the views of his being beforehand with other people.

In this elevation he meets his broker, who throws more fireworks into the mine, and blows him up to so fierce an inflammation, that he employs him instantly to take guineas to accept stock of any kind, and almost at any price; for the news being now public, the artist made their price upon him. In a word, having accepted them for fifty thousand pounds more than he is able to pay, the jobber has got an estate, the broker two or three hundred guineas, and the esquire remains at leisure to sell his coach and horses, his fine seat and rich furniture, to make good the deficiency of his bear-skins; and, at last, when all will not go through it, he must give them a brush for the rest.

There are who tell us, that the Exchange Alley improvements made upon the news of the Pretender’s being taken, were part of the plot, that the late Earl of Mar having concerted the voyage of Voghera, and how and in what manner the report of the Pretender’s being there should spread, who it should amuse, and how at one blow it should spread east to Vienna, and northwest to Paris, and so on, forgot not to contrive it, as at once should serve political ends in Italy and at Vienna: so, on the other hand, it should not fail to serve a private view in Exchange Alley; and, at the same time that he deceived some of the Whigs who he owed a large grudge to for shrewd turns at Preston and Dumblain, he might also raise a tax upon them towards the incident changes of his wandering circumstances.

I do not aver this story to be true, but the concert is so exact, and the nature of it so agreeable to the stock-jobbing art, nay, and to the artists also, whose correspondents are very punctual, especially since it is said that Mr. T——’s chief agent was formerly my Lord M——r’s broker; that I won’t affirm it may be true; but this I will venture to say of it, that if we are often served thus, the Pretender may very easily raise a hundred thousand pounds a year in Exchange Alley, for the carrying on an invasion, and lay the tax wholly upon his enemies the Whigs, which, by the way, I leave them to consider of.

But now that I make good the charge, viz., that the whole art and mystery is a mere original system of cheat and delusion, I must let you see, too, that this part of the comedy may be very well called, “A Bite for the Biter,” for which I must go back to the broker and his gudgeon; the moneyed gentleman finding himself let into the secret, indeed, and that he was bitten to the tune of £300,000 worse than nothing. After he had, unhappily, paid as far as his ready money would go, of which piece of honesty they say he has heartily repented, and is in hopes all that come after him will forgive him for the sake of what followed, stopped short, as he might well, you’ll say, when his money was all gone, and bethinks himself, What am I doing! I have paid away all this money like a fool; I was drawn in like an ass, by the eager desire of biting my neighbours to a vast sum, and I have been fool enough in that; but I have been ten thousand times a worse fool to pay a groat of the money, especially since I knew I could not pay it all. Besides, who but I would have forgot the nature of the thing I was dealing in, and of the people I was dealing with? Why, is it not all a mere body of knavery? Is not the whole system of stock-jobbing a science of fraud? and are not all the dealers original thieves and pickpockets? Nay, do they not own it themselves? Have not I heard T. W., B. O., and F. S., a thousand times say they know their employment was a branch of highway robbing, and only differed in two things; first, in degree, viz., that it was ten thousand times worse, more remorseless, more void of humanity, done without necessity, and committed upon fathers, brothers, widows, orphans, and intimate friends; in all which cases, highwaymen, generally touched with remorse, and affected with principles of humanity and generosity, stopped short, and chose to prey upon strangers only. Secondly, in danger, viz., that these rob securely; the other, with the utmost risk that the highwayman run, at the hazard of their lives, being sure to be hanged first or last, whereas these rob only at the hazard of their reputation, which is generally lost before they begin, and of their souls, which trifle is not worth the mentioning. Have not I, I say, heard my broker, Mr. ——, say all this and much more, “That no man was obliged to make good any of their Exchange Alley bargains, unless he pleased, and unless he was in haste to part with his money, which, indeed, I am not; and have not all the brokers and jobbers, when they have been bitten too hard, said the same thing, and refused to pay?

“Pray, how much did old Cudworth, Ph. C—p—m, and Mr. G——g, eminent jobbers, monarchs in their days of Exchange Alley, break for? And how much did they ever pay? One, if I mistake not, compounded at last for one penny per pound, and the other two for something less.

“In a word, they are all a gang of rogues and cheats, and I’ll pay none of them. Besides, my lawyer, Sir Thomas Subtle, tells me there is not a man of them dares sue me; no, though I had no protection to fly to; and he states the case thus:—

“‘You have, Sir,’ says Subtle, ‘contracted to accept of stock at a high price; East India at 220, Bank at 160, South Sea 120, and the like. Very well. They come to put it upon you, the stock being since fallen. Tell them you cannot take it yet; if they urge your contract, and demand when you will take it, tell them you will take it when you think fit.

“‘If they swagger, call names,—as rogue, cheat, and the like,—tell them, as to that, you are all of a fraternity; there is no great matter in it whether you cheat them, or they cheat you; ’tis as it happens in the way of trade; that it all belongs to the craft; and, as the Devil’s broker, Whiston, said to parson Giffard, tell them you are all of a trade. If they rage, and tell you the Devil will have you, and such as that, tell them they should let the Devil and you alone to agree about that, it is none of their business; but when he comes for you, tell them you would advise them to keep out of the way, or get a protection, as you have against them.

“‘After this, it is supposed they will sue you at law. Then leave it to me; I’ll hang them up for a year or two in our courts; and if ever in that time the stock comes up to the price, we will tender the money in court, demand the stock, and saddle the charges of the suit upon them. Let them avoid it if they can.’

“This is my lawyer’s opinion,” says he to himself, “and I’ll follow it to a tittle; and so we are told he has; and I do not hear that one stock-jobber has begun to sue him yet, or intends it; nor, indeed, dare they do it.”

This experiment, indeed, may teach understanding to every honest man that falls into the clutches of these merciless men, called stock-jobbers; and I give the world this notice, that, in short, not one of their Exchange Alley bargains need be otherwise than thus complied with. And, let these buyers of bear-skins remember it, not a man of them dare go to common law to recover the conditions; nor is any man obliged, farther than he thinks himself obliged in principle, to make good one of his bargains with them. How far principle will carry any man to be just to a common cheat, that has drawn him into a snare, I do not, indeed, know; but I cannot suppose it will go a very great length, where there is so clear, so plain, and so legal a door to get out at.

It must be confessed that, if the projected story of the taking of the Pretender was acted in concert between Rome and Exchange Alley, between my Lord Mar and a certain broker, as fame reports,—either the broker is the devil of a Jacobite, or my Lord the devil of a broker,—it must be acknowledged it was a far-fetched trick, and answered the end in Exchange most admirably.

Nor can all the world tell us any other end that it could answer; for as to the pretences of deluding the imperialists on shore, or the British men-of-war at sea, and so the better to facilitate the escape of the Pretender to Spain, I undertake to prove that this is absurd and ridiculous; for the Pretender was embarked at Netunna, and gone away to sea thirteen days, at least, before this whim of people taken at Voghera was talked of.

As to the amusements among the Courts at Vienna, Paris, and London, they amounted to nothing at all, answered no end; neither prompted any design on one hand, or hindered any thing on the other. In a word, we may challenge the world to tell us any one turn that was served by it, or end answered by it, but this in Exchange Alley.

Nor was this so inconsiderable a design as not to be worth while to form such a juggle, though a great way off; and, as far off as it is, if we may believe the report of those who remember the machines and contrivances of that original of stock-jobbing, Sir F—— C——. There are those who tell us letters have been ordered, by private management, to be written from the East Indies, with an account of the loss of ships which have been arrived there, and the arrival of ships lost; of war with the Great Mogul, when they have been in perfect tranquillity; and of peace with the Great Mogul, when he was come down against the factory of Bengal with one hundred thousand men;—just as it was thought proper to calculate those rumors for the raising and falling of the stock, and when it was for his purpose to buy cheap, or sell dear.

It would be endless to give an account of the subtleties of that capital ch—t, when he had a design to bite the whole Exchange. As he was the leading hand to the market, so he kept it in his power to set the price to all the dealers. The subject then was chiefly the East India stock, though there were other stocks on foot, too, though since sunk to nothing; such as the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Linen Manufacture stock, Paper stock, Saltpetre stock, and others, all at this day worse than nothing, though some of them then jobbed up to 350 per cent., as the two first in particular.

But the East India stock was the main point. Every man’s eye, when he came to the market, was upon the brokers who acted for Sir F——. Does Sir F—— sell or buy? If Sir F—— had a mind to buy, the first thing he did was to commission his brokers to look sour, shake their heads, suggest bad news from India; and at the bottom it followed, “I have commission from Sir F—— to sell out whatever I can”; and perhaps they would actually sell ten, perhaps twenty thousand pounds. Immediately the Exchange (for they were not then come to the Alley) was full of sellers; nobody would buy a shilling; till perhaps the stock would fall six, seven, eight, ten per cent., sometimes more. Then the cunning jobber had another set of men employed on purpose to buy, but with privacy and caution, all the stock they could lay their hands on; till, by selling ten thousand pounds at four or five per cent. loss, he would buy a hundred thousand pounds stock at ten or twelve per cent. under price; and, in a few weeks, by just the contrary method, set them all buying, and then sell them their own stock again at ten or twelve per cent. profit.

These honest methods laid the foundation, we will not say of a fine great stone house, on a certain forest, but it certainly laid the foundation of an opulent family, and initiated the crowds of jobbers in that dexterity in tricking and cheating one another, which, to this day, they are the greatest proficients that this part of the world ever saw.

By this exactly-concerted intelligence, he then knew how to turn the wages (a sort of jobbing then in mode, and which grew so infamous that they were at length obliged to suppress it by Act of Parliament) which way he pleased, and by which he got an immense sum of money. How often did the gentleman run down true news as if it had been false, and run up false news as if it had been true, by the force of his foreign intelligencers! How often coin reports of great actions, to serve a turn! It is too late a trick to be forgot by many that were bit by it to the bone.

In a word, the putting false news upon us is nothing but an old trade revived,—though, it must be confessed, this of the Pretender has been a masterpiece,—and the worthy projector who has the credit of it must pass for a dexterous manager as any the university of Exchange Alley has bred up for thirty years past.

It had, also, one particular in it for which it was very remarkable. Sham reports, false news, foreign letters, &c., are things that have been often trumped upon us, as above; and the town have been, not long ago, cheated to a good round sum that way; but then they have been soon detected, the morning news has been set to rights in the afternoon, or the evening’s heat has cooled by morning. But this trick had a fatal duration, for it held us near a fortnight in a firm persuasion of the thing; and even then it continued but suspected only for some time longer, and was yet longer before it was fully detected; and even at last it was hardly conquered till the Jacobites laughed us out of it, and the Pretender was looked for nearer home.

The assurance with which it was carried about the several places from whence it was written, made it so effectually be swallowed down, that really people saw no room to question the truth of it for a great while. It was written from Rome, from Leghorn, from Genoa, from Turin, and from Paris. Nay, it was even believed at court, and almost everywhere else.

Exquisite fraud! Who could have believed that this had been born in Exchange Alley, sent over to Rome, agreed to there, and executed in such a manner as to cheat, not the town only, but all Europe!

The authority that every one found attended the report, supported it so that it possessed us all; even those whose concern for the fact extorted tears from them, were not undeceived. Thus the hucksters had time to play their game, and they made hay while the sun shone; for, if we may believe common fame, bargains, contracts, and agreements for stocks, bear-skins included, amounted in that time to some hundred thousands of pounds; nay, some say to two millions and better, most of which was to the loss of the believing party.

But what tricking, what fraud, what laying plots as deep as hell, and as far as the ends of the earth, is here! What cheating of fathers, and mothers, and brothers, gulling widows, orphans, cozening the most wary, and plundering the unwary! And how much meaner robberies than these bring the friendless even to the gallows every sessions!

But I must not stop here. The story of the Pretender is over; that trump is played; and the artful gamester is wanting a new trick, after having played so many already that one would think invention was at an end; yet they have found it out, and we are just let into the secret.

Hitherto, craft and knavery appears to be their method; but we shall trace them now a little farther; and, like true hussars, who plunder not the enemy only, but their own army, as the opportunity presents, so these men are now come to prey upon the government itself.

Let us look into the late lotteries; had not a piercing eye detected the roguery, and not the fall of other things taken off the edge of the people’s fancy for venturing. These artists have brought up the tickets to sixteen shillings apiece, advance, even before the act was passed. That this could not be but by securing the possession of all the tickets in their own hands, except such select tickets as were not to come to market, I say this could not be but by connivance, and this every one knows; and that this connivance again could not be but by some higher people than those that were named to it, this, also, every one may know. Who they were, is none of my business to inquire, though it is easy to guess. It is very hard when our statesmen come into a confederacy to bite the people, and when dukes turn stock-jobbers. Yet that this was done is most certain; and what was this but making a property of the power that might be in their hands, the better to bite the people? For if the Parliament appointed £500,000 in tickets, to be given out at a certain rate that was low and reasonable, was it not to encourage the people, on whom the rest of the national burden lies? And if, by the craft and knavery of jobbers, the people are made to pay £600,000 for them, which is much about the case, pray, why not pay the hundred thousand pounds to the public, either to pay off a hundred thousand pounds of debt, or to make the burden of the current year a hundred thousand pounds lighter?—of which, I am sure, there is need enough.

It has been, indeed, our happiness, that a worthy member, being informed of this abominable cheat, detected it, and laid it before the House; upon which a vote was passed to make void all bargains make for tickets before the act was passed; so the biters were bitten; and a certain Sir George —— was obliged to refund; but the roguery of the design was never a jot the less for that.

But the fatal influence of this growing evil does not end here, and I must trace stock-jobbing now to its new-acquired capacity of intermeddling with the public, assisting rebellion, encouraging invasion; and if I do not bring the stock-jobbers, even the Whigs among them, to be guilty of treason against their king and country, and that of the worst kind, too, then I do nothing.

Had the stock-jobbers been all Jacobites by profession, or had the employment led them by the necessity of their business to put king and nation, and particularly their own, to bargain and sale; and had the feeling of news been their property, and they had an act of Parliament, or patent, to entitle them to the sole privilege of imposing what false things they pleased on the people, I should have had much the less reason to have complained of their roguery, and have rather turned myself to the rest of them people, who are the subject they work upon, and only have stood at Exchange Alley end, and cried out, “Gentlemen, have a care of your pockets.”

Again, had it been a private club, or society of men, acting one among another,—had the cheats, the frauds, and the tricks they made use of, in which the English rogue was a fool to them, being practised upon themselves only, and, like gamesters at a public board, they had only played with those that came there to play with them; in this case, also, I should have held my tongue, and only put them in mind of an old song, every stanza of which chimed in with, “Tantararara, rogues all, rogues all.”

But when we find this trade become a political vice, a public crime, and that, as it is now carried on, it appears dangerous to the public, that, whenever any wickedness is in hand, any mischief by the worst of the nation’s enemies upon the wheel, the stock-jobbers are naturally made assistant to it, that they become abettors of treason, assistant to rebellion and invasion, then it is certainly time to speak, for the very employment becomes a crime, and we are obliged to expose a sort of men who are more dangerous than a whole nation of enemies abroad, an evil more formidable than the pestilence, and, in their practice, more fatal to the public, than an invasion of Spaniards.

It is said by some, that the principal leaders in the jobbing trade at that time, and to whom most part of the satire in this work ought to be pointed, are Whigs, members of Parliament, and friends to the government; and that, therefore, I had best have a care of what I say of them.

My first answer is, So I will. I will have a care of them; and, in the next place, let them have a care of me; for if I should speak the whole truth of some of them, they might be Whigs; but I dare say they would be neither P—— men, or friends to the government very long; and it is very hard his Majesty should not be told what kind of friends to him such men are.

Besides, I deny the fact. These men friends to the government! Jesu Maria! The government may be friendly to them in a manner they do not deserve; but as to their being friends to the government, that is no more possible than the Cardinal Alberoni or the Chevalier de St. George are friends to the government; and, therefore, without reflecting upon persons, naming names, or the like,—there will be no need of names, the dress will describe them,—I lay down this new-fashioned proposition, or postulatum, take it which way you please, that I will make it out by the consequences of what I am going to say.

1. That stock-jobbing, as it is now practised, and as is generally understood by the word stock-jobbing, is neither less or more than high-treason in its very nature, and in its consequences.

2. That the stock-jobbers, who are guilty of the practices I am going to detect, are eventually traitors to King George, and to his government, family, and interest, and to their country, and deserve to be used at least as confederates with traitors, whenever there are any alarms of invasions, rebellions, or any secret practices against the government, of what kind soever.

This is a black charge, and boldly laid, and ought therefore to be effectually made out, which shall be the work of a few pages in the following sheets.

1. I lay down this as a rule, which I appeal to the laws of reason to support, that all those people who, at a time of public danger, whether of treasonable invasion from abroad, or traitorous attempts to raise insurrections at home, shall willingly and wittingly abet, assist, or encourage the traitors invading or rebelling, are equally guilty of treason.

2. All those who shall endeavour to weaken, disappoint, and disable the government in their preparations, or discourage the people in their assisting the government to oppose the rebels or invaders, are guilty of treason.

All that can be alleged in contradiction to this,—and perhaps that could not be made out neither,—is, that they are not traitors within the letter of the law; to which I answer, if they were, I should not satirize them, but impeach them. But if it appears that they are as effectually destructive to the peace and safety of the government, and of the king’s person and family, as if they were in open war with his power, I do the same thing, and fully answer the end proposed.

As there are many thieves besides housebreakers, highwaymen, lifters, and pickpockets, so there are many traitors besides rebels and invaders, and, perhaps, of a much worse kind; for, in a dispute between a certain lord and a woman of pleasure in the town, about the different virtue of the sexes, the lady insisted that the men were aggressors in the vice, and that, in plain English, if there were no whore-masters, there would be no whores; so, in a word, if there were no parties at home, no disaffection, no traitors among ourselves, there would be no invasions from abroad.

Now, I will suppose for the purpose only, that the people I am speaking of were not disaffected to the government; I mean, not originally and intentionally pointing their intention at the government; nay, that they are hearty Whigs, call them as we please; yet, if it appear they are hearty knaves, too, will do any thing for money, and are, by the necessity of their business, obliged, or by the vehement pursuit of their interest, that is to say, of their profits, pushed upon things as effectually ruinous and destructive to the government, as the very buying arms and ammunition by a protest Jacobite, in order to rebellion, could be, are they not traitors even in spite of principle, in spite of the name of Whig; nay, in spite of a thousand meritorious things that might otherwise be said of them, or done of them?

A gunsmith makes ten thousand firelocks in the Minories, the honest man may be a Whig, he designs to sell them to the government to lay up in the tower, or to kill Spaniards, or any of the rest of the king’s enemies; a merchant comes and buys some of them, and says they are for the West Indies, or to sell into France. But upon inquiry, it appears they are bought for rebellion; the undesigning gunsmith comes into trouble, of course, and it will be very hard for him to prove the negative, that when he has furnished the rebels with arms, he had no share in the rebellion.

To bring this home to the case in view, who were the men who, in the late hurry of an expected invasion, sunk the price of stock fourteen or fifteen per cent.? Who were the men that made a run upon the Bank of England, and pushed at them with some particular pique, too, if possible, to have run them down, and brought ’em to a stop of payment? And what was the consequences of these things? Will they tell us that running upon the bank, and lowering the stocks, was no treason? We know that, literally speaking, those things are no treason. But is there not a plain constructive treason in the consequences of it? Is not a wilful running down the public credit, at a time when the nation is threatened with an invasion from abroad, and rebellion at home? Is not this adding to the terror of the people? Is not this disabling the government, discouraging the king’s friends, and a visible encouragement of the king’s enemies? Is not all that is taken from the credit of the public, in such an occasion, added to the credit of the invasion? Does not every thing that weakens the government strengthen its enemies? And is not every step that is taken in prejudice of the king’s interest a step taken in aid of the designed rebellion? The kindest thing that can be said of a certain triumvirate of jobbers, whose hands have been deepest in this part of the work, and who, indeed, had more obligations upon them than any other men in the town, to have assisted the public interest and advanced the credit of the nation, is, that they did not think what they did, and that this excuse may not serve them another time, I may soon furnish them with an anatomy of some of the conduct of that little body of Number Three, that when they see their mistakes with the eyes that other men see them, they may at their leisure give a better turn to the measures of unbounded avarice.

I now, that I may not be said to speak without a precedent, I humbly refer to those moneyed gentlemen to a case recent in memory, and even in their own, which, though indeed they may think fit to have forgotten for a time, they will all call to mind when they hear of it again; and this was the case of two goldsmiths (knights also, and one of them member of Parliament, too) in Fleet Street, who pushed at the Bank of England at the time that the Pretender’s invasion from France was in its preparation. One of them, it was said, had gathered a quantity of Bank-bills, to the value of near £100,000, and the other a great sum, though not so many, and, it was said, resolved to demand them all at once.

Let the gentlemen I point at look back to the printed papers that year; let them inquire what construction was put upon it; let them inquire how the government resented it; how my Lord Treasurer Godolphin looked upon it as a mine formed to blow up the queen’s affairs, and how, in a word, all the friends of the government took it to be such a step in favor of the Pretender, as was impossible to consist with duty to the queen.

Let them inquire farther, with what difficulty Sir R—— Ho—— wiped off the imputation of being a favorer of the rebellion, and how often, in vain, he protested he did it with no such view, and how hard the Whigs were to believe him. Sir F—— C——d, indeed, carried it with a higher hand, and afterwards pretended to refuse the bills of the Bank; but still declared he did it as a goldsmith, and as a piece of justice to himself in some points in which the Bank had, as he alleged, used him ill. But, in general, it was looked upon as an open affront to the government, and an abetting and countenancing the invasion of the Pretender from abroad, and the rebellion intended at home. Nor was the government, much less were the authors of private papers and prints, wanting in letting them know it; nay, if I am not misinformed, they were threatened with being treated as enemies to the government; and if things had gone on to extremities, they had doubtless been marked out as persons the government were to take care of.

Now I only speak in plainer words; it was said then, that such men as endeavoured to run down the public credit were enemies to the government. I know no distinction in the case, that should require so much tenderness. Every subject of King George, who is at the same time an enemy to King George, is a traitor; and every overt act of that enmity, it being his duty to his utmost to favor, aid, and support the government, is an overt act of treason, let it be gilded over with what fine words the persons please, ’tis the same thing, if it is not literal treason, and within reach of the statute, yet the crime is in itself of the same nature.

And let any one tell me what is the difference between two dealers in Paris credit in the time of a French invasion, and three dealers in paper credit in the time of a Spanish invasion, or what sanctity in Birchin Lane more than in Fleet Street, that one should be a protection for the same practice that was resented so justly in another.

Were those stock-jobbers sincerely and heartily in the interest of King George and his government, as they pretend loudly, what run could there be upon the Bank, what ebb of credit, what sinking of stock? The honest Whigs, who were friends to the government at that time, mentioned above, who not only knew their duty, but how to make it seasonable and useful, acted after another manner. When others ran upon the Bank with all the fury possible, they carried all the money thither they could gather up; nay, I could name a man in this city, who, having but £500 in the world, carried it all into the Bank to support the credit of the public; and the story being told to her Majesty by the late Lord Treasurer Godolphin, the sense of such fidelity so moved the queen, that she sent him a hundred pounds as a gift, a royal token of her accepting such an act of loyalty; and caused my Lord to give him an obligation from the Treasury to repay him the whole £500 if any disaster to the Bank should have made it doubtful.

Where ’s the like courage and conduct to be found now? Is it in being? Are the gentlemen less able? Or is it that they have not the same zeal for King George as that honest citizen had for the queen? Or do they doubt the king being as sensible of the service? Or what is the matter that the public credit had rather met with injurious juggling and jobbing upon it, than real support, either from Exchange Alley, Birchin Lane, or some other places less noted?

Let those men reflect a little upon the circumstances the public credit must have been in by such mismanagement, if the Spanish attempt had been made, and if these easterly Protestant winds had not chopped in, by which Providence has given the government time to put itself in a posture of defence, so as now not to be afraid of them; and if the capital stock of the persons interested in the funds is now sunk a million in the real value of them as they stood before even at the market, which is nothing but what the matter of fact will justify, to what degree would the same current, if it had gone on, have sunk the estates of all the moneyed men in England?

In what manner would money have been raised upon a new credit for any immediate exigencies that might have happened? And should the government have been supported,—nay, though the Parliament had granted funds,—while these men had made all credit ebb, perhaps, to twenty-five or thirty per cent. discount? And is not this, then, a species of treason and rebellion?

It was very remarkable, that, in the juncture of those things, the Jacobites could not refrain taking notice how easy it was to set the citizens plundering the Bank, and even the Exchequer, too; for, had this gone on, the funds, which are, in effect, the Exchequer itself, would have gone down hill hand in hand with the Bank; credit would have borne equal pace in one as well as in the other; and the government would no more have been able to borrow, than the Bank would have been able to pay.

It is scarce fit to enter into a description of all the mischievous consequences which necessarily follow running down the public credit, in case of such dangers as I have mentioned above. If I should fully describe them, it would appear incredible. Every one will allow that this practice of the jobbers, carried on a little farther, would indeed appear to be the worst kind of treason.

But it is needful, after having said thus much of the crime, to say something of the place, and then a little of the persons, too. The centre of the jobbing is in the kingdom of Exchange Alley, and its adjacencies. The limits are easily surrounded in about a minute and a half, viz., stepping out of Jonathan’s into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning due east, you advance to Garraway’s; from thence, going out at the other door, you go on still east into Birchin Lane; and then halting a little at the Sword-blade Bank, to do much mischief in fewest words, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there in your way west, and thus having boxed your compass, and sailed round the whole stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan’s again; and so, as most of the great follies of life oblige us to do, you end just where you began.

But this is by way of digression; and even still, before I come to the main case, I am obliged to tell you that, though this is the sphere of the jobbers’ motion, the orb to which they are confined, and out of which they cannot well act in their way, yet it does not follow but that men of foreign situation (I mean foreign as to them, I do not mean foreign as to nation); nay, some whose lustre is said to be too bright for the hemisphere of a coffee-house, have yet their influence there, and act by substitutes and representatives. But first I must speak to originals.

C——, a man of brass sufficient for much more business than he can be trusted with, is said to manage for three blue ribbons, and for four or five cash-keepers, who tell more money than their own. He fetches and carries with such indefatigable application, that he is said never to fail his appointments to a minute, however remote from one another. Wherever he appears, he makes an Exchange Alley in his person, and a court in his audience; he is himself a Jonathan’s coffee-house in little; though he be at a cockpit, he realizes Exchange Alley in every place, and yet he rather is directed than directs; and, like a certain great general, famed for more fire than phlegm, is fitter to drive than to lead.

S—— has twice the head, but not half the business as C—— is said to have, yet he gets more money for himself, and C—— gets more for other folks. S—— is as cunning as C—— is bold, and the reserve of one with the openness of the other, makes a complete Exchange Alley man. C—— jumps at every thing, and as he got the start of the world at his beginning, by venturing more than he was worth, so he deals now with all men as if they ventured more than they are worth. Originally he was a bite, which, in modern language, is a sharper; or, being fully interpreted, may signify the head-class of the fraternity called pickpockets.

T——, a gamester of the same board, acts in concert with C—— and S——, and makes together a true triumvirate of modern thieving. He inherits the face of C——, with the craft of S——, but seems to take state upon him, and acts the reserved part more than either; yet even this, too, is all grimace, for wherever he can be sure to kill, he can’t fawn like an Irishman.

They are all three of yesterday in their characters, yet they are old in their crime, viz., of resolving to be rich at the price of every man they can bubble. Their first blow was aimed at the Bank, but there they were outwitted; and the great Lord Treasurer Godolphin, in the late reign, gave them their just characters from that action. The defeat they met with there sticks so close to them, that they reserve the measures of their revenge, not to cool, no, not till the charter of the Bank shall expire.

However, their wings being clipped by the clause then obtained in an Act of Parliament,—that no society, corporation, &c., should issue out bills of credit as a bank, but the Bank of England only,—they were obliged ever since to turn stock-jobbers, or, if we may speak properly of them, they are the stock-jobbers’ masters; for they have so many bear-skins pawned to them at a time, so much stock deposited with them upon bottomrée, as it might be called, that indeed they may be called the city pawnbrokers; and I have been told, that they have had fifty stock-jobbers and brokers bound hand and foot, and laid in heaps at their doors at a time.

The next trick they tried, and which was, indeed, the masterpiece of their knavery, was the getting an assignment of the forfeited estates in Ireland into their hands. Indeed, they began the world upon this prospect, and expected to have had the whole kingdom of Ireland mortgaged to them. But here, too, they were disappointed, and had they not found a man that had as much money as themselves, and more honesty, that bargain of the forfeited estates had been the last they had made in the world.

The endeavours they use to cheat that gentleman, after he had delivered them from a blow that would have blown them up, is another black part of their story that remains to be told, for the illustration of their character, at another time; but in the interim, ’t is enough to say, that he who delivered them as fools, knew how to deliver himself from them as knaves; and so they were dropped out of the Irish bargain, to their great mortification.

Now they stand ready, as occasion offers, and profit presents, to stock-job the nation, cozen the Parliament, ruffle the Bank, run up and down stocks, and put the dice upon the whole town.

They had another flap with a Fox-tail, to the scandal of their politics, in the late vote about the tickets of the lottery which I mentioned above. What market they will make of it is well enough known. But the plot was never the less cunning, and ’t is certain the knavery is not the less visible for the miscarriage. I come next to their more modern management.

Whenever they call in their money, the stock-jobbers must sell; the bear-skin men must commute, and pay differences money; then down come the stocks, tumbling two or three per cent.; then the tools must sell and their masters buy; the next week they take in stocks again, then the jobbers buy, and the managers sell. Thus the jobbers bite their friends, and these men bite the jobbers, qui sarpat sharpabitur,—Exchange Alley Latin: they that are let into the secret will understand it.

The truth is, it has been foretold by cunning men, who often see what can’t be hid, that these men, by a mass of money which they command of other people’s, as well as their own, will, in time, ruin the jobbing trade. But ’t will be only like a general visitation, where all distempers are swallowed up in the plague, like a common calamity, that makes enemies turn friends, and drowns lesser grievance in the general deluge. For if the reprisal trade should adjourn from Exchange Alley to Birchin Lane, it may seem to be like the banishing usury from the city of Rome, which transferred it to a Jew at Genoa, a monk at Naples, and a banker at Venice, who, it was said, had no less than seven-and-twenty principalities in Italy mortgaged to them at a time, besides two kingdoms, seven duchies, and the jewels of the crown of France.

Having thus given the blazing characters of three capital sharpers of Great Britain, knaves of lesser magnitude can have no room to shine; the Alley throngs with Jews, jobbers, and brokers; their names are needless, their characters dirty as their employment: and the best thing that I can yet find to say of them is, that there happens to be two honest men among them,—Heavens preserve their integrity; for the place is a snare, the employment itself fatal to principle, and, hitherto, the same observation which I think was very aptly made upon the Mint, will justly turn upon them,—that many an honest man has gone in to them, but cannot say that I ever knew one come an honest man out from them.

But to leave them a little, and turn our eyes another way, is it not surprising to find new faces among these scandalous people, and persons even too big even for our reproof? Is it possible that stars of another latitude should appear in our hemisphere? Had it been Sims or Bowcher, or gamesters of the drawing-rooms or masquerades, there had been little to be said; or had the groom-porters been transposed to Garraway’s and Jonathan’s, it had been nothing new; true gamesters being always ready to turn their hand to any play. But to see statesmen turn dealers, and men of honor stoop to the chicanery of jobbing; to see men at the offices in the morning, at the P—— house about noon, at the cabinet at night, and at Exchange Alley in the proper intervals, what new phenomena are these? What fatal things may these shining planets (like the late great light) foretell to the state and to the public; for when statesmen turn jobbers, the state may be jobbed.

It may be true that a treasurer or cash-keeper may be trusted with more money than he is worth, and many times it is so; and if the man be honest, there may be no harm in it: but when a treasurer plays for more money than he is worth, they that trust him run a risk of their money, because, though he may an honest man, he may be undone. I speak of private, not public treasurers.

Indeed, it requires some apology to say such a one may be an honest man; it would be hard to call him an honest man, who plays away any man’s money that is not his own, or more than he is able to pay again with his own. But if it be dishonest to play it away, that is, lose it at play, ’tis equally dishonest to play with it, whether it be lost or no; because, in such a case, he that plays for more than he can pay, his master runs the hazard more than himself; nay, his master runs an unequal hazard, for if the money be lost, ’tis the master’s, if there is gain, ’tis the servant’s.

Stock-jobbing is play; a box and dice may be less dangerous, the nature of them are alike a hazard; and if they venture at either what is not their own, the knavery is the same. It is not necessary, any more than it is safe, to mention the persons I may think of in this remark; they who are the men will easily understand me.

In a word, I appeal to all the world, whether a man that is intrusted with other men’s money (whether public or private is not the question) ought to be seen in Exchange Alley. Would it not be a sufficient objection to any gentleman or merchant, not to employ any man to keep his cash, or look after his estate, to say of him he plays, he is a gamester, or he is given to gaming and stock-jobbing, which is still worse, gives the same, or a stronger ground of objection in like cases.

Again, are there fewer sharpers and setters in Exchange Alley than at the Groom Porters? Is there less cheating in stock-jobbing than at play? Or, rather, is there not fifty times more? An unentered youth coming to deal in Exchange Alley is immediately surrounded with bites, setters, pointers, and the worst set of cheats, just as a young country gentleman is with bawds, pimps, and spongers, when he first comes to town. It is ten thousand to one, when a forward young tradesman steps out of his shop into Exchange Alley, I say ’t is ten thousand to one but he is undone: if you see him once but enter the fatal door, never discount his bills afterwards, never trust him with goods at six months’ pay any more.

If it be thus dangerous to the mean, what is it to the great? I see only this difference, that in the first the danger is private, in the latter public.

It has not been many years since elections for members of —— came to market in Exchange Alley, as current as lottery-tickets now, and at a price, like these, much above what any Parliament allowed them to go at. While this was carried on, a great many honest men exclaimed against it, and exposed it; nay, several Acts of Parliament were proposed for regulating elections, and preventing bribery and corruption; but all this would not do, and this, indeed, was one of the happy consequences of that otherwise necessary act for triennial Parliaments; and I firmly believe, that it is owing very much to the late suspending that act for a time, that these things are not come to market again.

It may easily be remembered, that the first occasion of the Exchange Alley men engaging in the case of elections of members was in King William’s time, on the famous disputes which happened between the Old East India Company and the New; which, having held a great while, and having embarrassed, not the city only, but the whole nation, and even made itself dangerous to the public business, it was expected it should be fully decided by the House of Commons. To this end, the members of both companies, with all the trick, artifice, cunning, and corruption, that money and interest could arm them with, bestirred themselves to be chosen members.

Brokers rid night and day from one end of the kingdom to the other, to engage gentlemen to bribe corporations, to buy off competitors, and to manage the elections. You will see the state of things at that time, and the danger this stock-jobbing wickedness had brought the public to, if you please to read the following exclamation of the honest freeholders at that time, which was presented to the public by way of complaint. The thing was laid before the king first, and before the Parliament afterwards; and it was his Majesty’s sense of the consequence, that made him resolve to bring the two East India Companies to unite their stocks; for, in a word, the stock-jobbers embroiled the whole nation.

There was a book published some years ago, and when the stock-jobbing people were thought as willing, yet not quite so daring or so cunning, as they are now; it was entitled, “The Villany of the Stock-jobbers.” Indeed, it set them out in their true colors, and for some time gave them a little shock; for the truth was, they jobbed King William and the government at that time at such a rate, that, in spite of the invincible valor and resolution of the soldiery, in spite of the most glorious prince and most vigilant general the world had ever seen, yet the enemy gained upon us every year; the funds were run down, the credit jobbed away in Exchange Alley, the king and his troops devoured by mechanics, and sold to usury; tallies lay bundled up like Bath faggots in the hands of brokers and stock-jobbers; the Parliament gave taxes, laid funds, but the loans were at the mercy of those men; and they showed their mercy, indeed, by devouring the king and the army, the Parliament, and, indeed, the whole nation, bringing that great prince sometimes to that exigence, through unexpressible extortions that were put upon him, that he has even gone into the field without his equipage, nay, even without his army; the regiments have been unclothed when the king has been in the field, and the willing, brave English spirit, eager to honor their country, and follow such a king, have marched even to battle without either stockings or shoes, while his servants have been every day working in Exchange Alley, to get his own money of the Stock-jobbers, even after all the horrible demands of discount have been allowed; and, at last, scarce fifty per cent. of the money granted by Parliament has come into the Exchequer, and that late, too late for that service, and by driblets, till the king has been tired of the delay, and been even ready to give up the cause.

We have just now had a test of their cunning on the subject of the invasion. These were the men that made the first advantage of the news; immediately those that were to put stock upon any man at a high price tendered it, the accepters, forced by the demand, call in their money on their hand, pay the difference, the price falls, a general run upon the Bank follows, and stock-jobbing began it.

Say this was no design, yet if every alarm of the foolish, or the timorous, or the false, is capable to set the humor afloat by the agency of Exchange Alley, is as dangerous to the public safety as a magazine of gunpowder is to a populous city.

But if it be by design, then, whenever the Pretender is to be pawned upon us by any foreign power that can but talk of lending five or six thousand men, our public credit is at his mercy, by the agency of Exchange Alley and the brokers.

The story of the invasion from Spain, we hope, is now over. Indeed, at the worst, I saw no such reason to be surprised to that degree as was the case here. Let us look back, and see what injury to the public has the very rumor been! what damage to credit! what stop to trade! what interruption to our general commerce! besides sinking above a million sterling upon our estates; and every farthing of this is occasioned by the stock-jobbers, and in the consequence of their contrivance, and by no other means; for as to the design of an invasion, or that they resolved to come hither at all, though we have evident proofs of that, because some of them have been actually landed, yet we cannot yet resolve the question positively, whether it was ever worth our being so much alarmed, as we have been in Exchange Alley.

While these sheets were at the press, we had another little test of their knavery to the public; and it is not at all owing to them that the thing ran no farther. The contrary winds and storms, &c., had disappointed the king’s enemies, and the Spanish fleet was driven back to Spain in a shattered and defeated condition, as appears by the public account of those things: but in the interval of this news came an account, on the other hand, that some of the party were arrived in Scotland, that they had beat it up, notwithstanding all the opposition of nature, the hindrances of winds and seas. Immediately stocks fell two per cent., nor did the good news of the defeated return of the rest animate these men to keep up the interest, by which it appears that they are acted more by the bad principle than by the good; that they choose rather to do evil than to do good; that they sink faster than they rise, and are willinger to do harm than good to the government.

From whence I infer, that the government, looking upon them as they really are, rather enemies than friends to the general interest, should rather incline to root them out than preserve them. AMEN.

ENGLISH FUNDS.

HIGHEST AND LOWEST PRICE OF THREE PER CENTS IN EACH YEAR, FROM 1731 TO 1848.

Highest. Lowest.

1731 99 94

1732 101 96

1733 103 92

1734 94 90

1735 98 92

1736 113 100

1737 107 105

1738 106 102

1739 105 97

1740 101 98

1741 101 98

1742 102 98

1743 103 100

1744 99 90

1745 92 85

1746 89 75

1747 86 81

1748 91 76

1749 102 91

1750 101 98

1751 103 97

1752 106 101

1753 106 104

1754 104 102

1755 101 90

1756 90 88

1757 91 86

1758 98 89

1759 88 79

1760 83 76

1761 88 66

1762 87 63

1763 96 82

1764 86 80

1765 91 85

1766 90 87

1767 91 87

1768 93 88

1769 89 84

1770 87 78

1771 88 81

1772 95 87

1773 87 86

1774 89 86

1775 90 87

1776 90 81

1777 80 76

1778 72 61

1779 64 59

1780 63 60

1781 59 56

1782 61 53

1783 68 58

1784 57 54

1785 71 55

1787 78 69

1789 81¼ 71⅝

1790 80⅞ 70½

1791 89¾ 75¾

1792 97¼ 72½

1793 81 70½

1794 72⅜ 62¾

1795 70½ 61

1796 70⅝ 53¼

1797 56½ 47½

1798 58 47¼

1799 69 52⅝

1800 67¼ 60

1801 70 54¼

1802 79 66

1803 73 50¼

1804 58⅞ 53¾

1805 62 57

1806 64⅝ 58½

1807 64⅜ 57⅝

1808 69⅛ 62⅝

1809 70⅜ 63⅜

1810 71 63¼

1811 66¾ 61¾

1812 63 55⅛

1813 67½ 54½

1814 72½ 61½

1815 65¾ 53⅞

1816 64⅝ 59½

1817 84¼ 62

1818 82 73

1819 79 64⅞

1820 70¼ 65⅝

1821 78¾ 68¾

1822 83 75⅜

1823 85¾ 72

1824 96⅞ 84¾

1825 94¼ 75

1826 84½ 73⅞

1827 89½ 76¾

1828 88⅜ 80⅞

1829 94¼ 85⅝

1830 94¼ 77½

1831 84¾ 74⅞

1832 85¾ 81⅝

1833 91¼ 84¼

1834 93 87½

1835 92⅞ 89¼

1836 92¼ 86⅝

1837 93⅞ 87⅞

1838 95¼ 90⅝

1839 93⅞ 89¼

1840 93⅛ 85¾

1841 90½ 87¼

1842 95⅛ 88

1843 97⅛ 92⅛

1844 101¼ 96½

1845 100⅝ 91⅞

1846 97¾ 93¼

1847 94 78¾

1848 89½ 80

LOANS RAISED SINCE 1793, WITH THE RATES OF INTEREST.

Year. Amount. Per cent.

1793 £4,500,000 £4 3s. 4d.

1794 11,000,000 4 10 9

1795 22,600,000 4 15 8

1796 18,000,000 4 14 9

” 7,500,000 4 12 2

1797 18,000,000 5 12 6

” 16,120,000 6 6 10

1798 17,000,000 6 4 9

1799 3,000,000 5 12 5

” 15,500,000 5 5 0

1800 20,500,000 4 12 2

1801 28,000,000 5 5 6

1802 25,000,000 3 19 2

1803 12,000,000 5 2 0

1804 14,500,000 5 9 2

1805 22,500,000 5 3 2

” 1,500,000 5 16 4

1806 20,000,000 4 19 7

1807 14,200,000 4 14 7

” 1,500,000 4 16 4

1808 10,500,000 4 14 6

1809 14,600,000 4 11 7

1810 13,400,000 4 4 2

1811 12,000,000 4 13 6

1812 22,500,000 5 5 7

1813 27,000,000 5 8 4½

” 22,000,000 5 6 2

1814 24,000,000 4 14 1

1815 36,000,000 5 12 4

1835 15,000,000 ” ” ”

1847 8,000,000 3 7 6

A LIST OF ACTS RELATIVE TO BROKERS.

13 Edward I. Statute 5 Anno 1284.

1 James I. ”21 1604.

8 and 9 William III. ”32 1697, expired 1707.

6 Anne ”16 1707.

10 ” ”19 1711.

6 George I. ”18 1720.

3 George II. ”31 1730, for Bristol.

7 George II. ”8 1739.

DIRECTORS OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND

FROM 1694 TO 1847.

Sir John Houblon 1694

Michael Godfrey ”

Sir Thomas Abney ”

Sir James Bateman ”

Brooke Bridges ”

George Boddington ”

James Denew ”

Sir Henry Furnese ”

Sir William Gore ”

Thomas Goddard ”

Sir Gilbert Heathcote ”

Sir William Hedges ”

Sir James Houblon ”

Sir John Huband ”

Abraham Houblon ”

Sir Theodore Janssen ”

John Knight ”

Samuel Lethieullier ”

John Lordell ”

William Patterson ”

Robert Raworth ”

Sir William Scawen ”

Obadiah Sedgwick ”

John Smith ”

Nathaniel Tench ”

Sir John Ward ”

Henry Cornish 1695

Edward Clarke ”

Sir John Cope, Sen. ”

Peter Godfrey ”

Anthony Stevens 1695

Sir William Ashhurst 1697

Robert Bristow ”

Samuel Bultell ”

John Page ”

Sir Francis Eyles ”

John Shipman ”

Sir Nathaniel Gould ”

Samuel Lock ”

Sir Peter Delme 1698

William Dawsonne ”

Francis Stratford ”

Peter Gott ”

Sir Richard Levett ”

John Devinck 1699

John Rudge ”

Richard Perry ”

John Reynardson 1700

William Desbouverie ”

Josiah Diston 1701

John Gould ”

John Hanger ”

Humphrey South ”

Sir Robert Clayton 1702

Sir Gerard Conyers ”

Abraham Hill ”

Samuel Heathcote ”

Charles Chambrelan 1703

Sir William Hodges ”

Sir Charles Peers 1705

Sir Thomas Scawen 1705

Sir John Cope, Jun. 1706

James Dolliffe 1708

John Emilie ”

William Gore 1709

Sir Justus Beck 1710

William Henry Comellissen ”

John Dolben ”

Jeremiah Powell ”

Sir Denis Dutry 1711

Heneage Fetherstone ”

Sir Philip Jackson ”

John Ward, Jun. ”

Sir George Thorold ”

Mr. Robert Atwood 1712

Richard Cary ”

Sir Joseph Hodges ”

Sir Randolph Knipe ”

Christopher Lethieullier ”

Matthew Raper ”

John Edmonds 1713

Sir Richard Houblon ”

Richard Chiswell 1714

Sir William Jolliff ”

Henry Lyell ”

William Thompson ”

Sir John Eyles 1715

Mr. Barrington Eaton 1716

John Francis Fauquier ”

Humphrey Morice ”

Moses Raper ”

Sir Joseph Eyles 1717

Sir William Humphreys 1719

Richard Du Cane 1720

Samuel Holden ”

Bryan Benson 1721

Thomas Cooke ”

Delillers Carbonnel 1722

Nathaniel Gould ”

Henry Herring ”

Hon. Horatio Townshend ”

Sir Edward Bellamy 1723

Matthew Howard ”

John Olmuns ”

Sir Francis Forbes 1724

William Fawkener ”

Sir John Heathcote 1725

John Nicoll 1726

Sir Francis Porten ”

Stamp Brooksbank 1728

James Gaultier ”

William Hunt ”

William Snelling ”

Clement Boehm 1729

Joseph Paice, Jun. 1730

Matthew Raper ”

James Spilman ”

Robert Alsop 1731

John Bance ”

Henry Neale 1732

Robert Thornton ”

Charles Savage 1733

Benjamin Lethieullier 1734

Benjamin Longuet ”

Sir John Thompson ”

Christopher Tower ”

John Eaton Dodsworth ”

Frederick Frankland 1736

Samuel Trench ”

Alexander Sheafe 1737

Richard Chiswell, Jun. 1738

Sir John Lequesne ”

Benjamin Mee ”

Mark Weyland ”

Claude Fonnereau 1739

Charles Palmer ”

John South ”

Matthew Beachcroft 1741

Robert Nettleton ”

Thomas Whateley ”

Merrik Burrell 1742

James Lever ”

Theophilus Salwey 1742

Robert Marsh 1743

James Theobald ”

Robert Salusbury 1744

Peter Thomas ”

Bartholomew Burton 1746

Godfrey Thornton 1748

John Weyland ”

Thomas Winterbottom 1749

Charles Boehm 1750

Matthew Clairmont ”

Samuel Handley ”

Richard Stratton ”

Harry Thompson ”

Sir Samuel Fludyer 1753

John Sargent ”

William Cooper 1754

Philip De la Haize ”

Sir Thomas Chitty 1755

Peter Du’Cane ”

Edward Payne 1756

Thomas Plurner ”

Peter Theobald ”

Robert Dingley 1757

James Sperling ”

Henry Plant 1759

Samuel Beachcroft 1760

Gustavus Brander 1761

Daniel Booth ”

John Cornwall ”

Peter Gaussen ”

James Haughton Langston ”

Edmund Wilcox ”

William Bowden 1763

William Ewer ”

Richard Neave ”

John Fisher 1764

Christopher Hake, Jun. ”

Thomas Thomas 1765

Edward Darell 1767

William Halhed ”

Lyde Browne 1768

George Drake ”

George Hayter ”

Benjamin Hopkins ”

George Peters ”

Mark Weyland ”

Roger Boehm 1769

Matthew Howard ”

Benjamin Branfill 1770

William Snell ”

Samuel Bosanquet 1771

Martyn Fonnereau ”

Godfrey Thornton 1772

Daniel Giles, Jun. 1774

Christopher Puller ”

Thomas Dea 1775

Richard Clay 1776

Thomas Raikes ”

Benjamin Mee, Jun. 1777

John Sargent, Jun. 1788

William Cooke 1780

Samuel Thornton ”

Thomas Scott Jackson ”

Job Matthew 1781

Joseph Nutt ”

Thomas Boddington 1782

Benjamin Winthrop ”

Beeston Long, Jun. 1784

James Maude ”

Isaac Osborne ”

Sir Brook Watson ”

John Harrison 1785

Bicknell Coney 1786

John Whitmore, Jun. ”

Peter Isaac Thellusson 1787

Moses Yeldham 1788

William Manning, Jun. 1790

John Pearce ”

John Puget ”

Thomas Lewin 1791

Peter Cazalet 1792

William Mellish 1792

Edward Simeon ”

Alexander Champion, Jun. 1794

George Dorrien ”

Jeremiah Harman ”

Nathaniel Bogle French 1796

Charles Pole ”

Thomas Amyand 1798

Thomas Langley ”

Ebenezer Maitland ”

Peter Free 1800

Jeremiah Olive ”

Henry Smith 1802

Stephen Thornton ”

John Bowden 1803

Cornelius Buller ”

Alexander Baring 1805

John Josiah Holford ”

John Baker Richards ”

Samuel Drew 1806

Henry Davidson 1807

John Stainforth ”

Sir Robert Wigram ”

John Campbell 1808

William Haldimand 1809

George Blackman 1810

William Tierney Robarts ”

John Horsley Palmer 1811

Andrew Henry Thompson ”

Sir Thomas Neave 1812

Richard Mee Raikes ”

James Pattison, Jun. 1813

William Ward 1817

Samuel Hibbert 1819

Timothy Abraham Curtis 1820

John Rae Reid ”

Sir John Henry Pelly 1821

David Barclay ”

John Cockerell ”

Henry Porcher ”

William Cotton 1822

John Benjamin Heath 1823

William R. Robinson 1825

James Morris 1827

William Thompson ”

Humphrey St. John Mildmay 1828

John Oliver Hanson 1829

Charles Pascoe Grenfell 1830

Abel Lewes Gower ”

Sheffield Neave ”

Rowland Mitchell 1833

Christopher Pearse 1834

Henry Davidson 1835

Bonamy Dobree ”

Thomson Hankey, Jun. ”

Henry James Prescott ”

Robert Barclay 1837

John Malcolmson ”

John Gellibrand Hubbard 1838

Charles Frederick Huth ”

Alfred Latham ”

Thomas Charles Smith ”

Thomas Matthias Weguelin ”

Edward Henry Chapman 1840

Kirkman Daniel Hodgson ”

William Little 1842

David Powell ”

Francis Wilson ”

Arthur Edward Campbell 1843

Thomas Tooke, Jun. ”

Henry Lancelot Holland 1844

Thomas Newman Hunt ”

ANNUAL DIVIDENDS OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND,

From 1694 to 1849 inclusive.

Per cent.

1694-1697 8

1698 7

1699 9½

1700 10¾

1701 9

1702 12

1703 16½

1704 15¾

1705 15½

1706 18¼

1707 7¾

1708 12½

1709 8½

1710 7½

1711 7

1712 8

1713 8

1714 8

1715 7¾

1716 8

1717 8

1718 8

1719 7½

1720 7½

1721 6

1722 6

1723 6

1724 6

1725 6

1726 6

1727 6

1728 5½

1729 5½

1730 5¾

1731 5¾

Dividends, with the highest and lowest prices of Bank of England Stock.

Year. Dividend. Highest. Lowest.

1732 5¾ 152 109

1733 5½ 151 130

1734 5½ 140 132

1735 5½ 146 138

1736 5½ 151 148

1737 5½ 151 142

1738 5½ 145 140

1739 5½ 144 115

1740 5½ 144 138

1741 5½ 143 135

1742 5½ 143 136

1743 5½ 148 145

1744 5½ 148 116

1745 5½ 147 133

1746 5½ 136 125

1747 5 129 119

1748 5 129 117

1749 5 140 128

1750 5 136 131

1751 5 142 135

1752 5 149 141

1753 4½ 144 135

1754 4½ 135 130

1755 4½ 162 119

1756 4½ 121 114

1757 4½ 120 115

1758 4½ 123 116

1759 4½ 123 109

1760 4½ 114 101

1761 4½ 116 98

1762 4½ 119 91

1763 4½ 131 111

1764 4¾ 127 112

1765 5 136 126

1766 5 139 135

1767 5¼ 159 142

1768 5½ 170 158

1769 5½ 175 149

1770 5½ 153 105

1771 5½ 155 134

1772 5½ 153 144

1773 5½ 143 139

1774 5½ 146 139

1775 5½ 146 141

1776 5½ 143 134

1777 5½ 138 128

1778 5½ 120 107

1779 5½ 118 106

1780 5½ 116 109

1781 5¾ 119 105

1782 6 124 109

1783 6 134 112

1784 6 118 110

1785 6 142 111

1786 6 158 138

1787 6 160 145

1788 7 178 158

1789 7 191 169

1790 7 188 164

1791 7 204 178

1792 7 219 171

1793 7 180 161

1794 7 169 153

1795 7 180 152

1796 7 180 142

1797 7 146 115

1798 7 138 118

1799 7 176 134

1800 6¾ 175 154

1801 7 190 148

1802 7 207 178

1803 7 193 136

1804 7 169 146

1805 7 197 167

1806 7 223 191

1807 10 235 208

1808 10 240 224

1809 10 288 235

1810 10 276 273

1811 10 251 229

1812 10 232 212

1813 10 242 211

1814 10 266 234

1815 10 262 219

1816 10 262 215

1817 10 294 220

1818 10 292 207

1819 10 267 210

1820 10 226 215

1821 10 240 221

1822 10 252 235

1823 8 246 204

1824 8 245 227

1825 8 299 196

1826 8 223 193

1827 8 217 200

1828 8 215 203

1829 8 218 208

1830 8 203 194

1831 8 204 189

1832 8 208 185

1833 8 213 190

1834 8 225 211

1835 8 225 208

1836 8 219 199

1837 8 212 203

1838 8 208 201

1839 7 206 177

1840 7 179 156

1841 7 173 157

1842 7 173 165

1843 7 185 172

1844 7 211 185

1845 7 215 199

1846 7 211 199

1847 7 206½ 180

1848 7 202 183

1849 7 200 188½

Bank Holidays.—At the Bank of England the only holidays in the dividend offices are Good Friday and Christmas. In the transfer offices, besides the above, May 1st and November 1st. East India House and Exchequer,—Good Friday and Christmas. Custom-House,—Christmas, Good Friday, Prince of Wales’s birthday and the Queen’s birthday, November 9th and May 24th.

In Ireland.—Banks, Custom-House, &c., Good Friday, Christmas, and Queen’s birthday.

In Scotland.—New year’s day, King Charles I. martyrdom, Queen’s marriage, Queen’s birthday, Good Friday, Charles II. restoration, Queen’s accession, Queen’s coronation, Gunpowder Plot, and Christmas day.

FLUCTUATIONS OF THE ENGLISH FUNDS IN 1846-47.

Table showing the Highest and Lowest Prices of the principal Funds of the London Market, from November, 1846, to October, 1847.

Months. Bank Stock. 3 per ct. reduced. 3 per ct. Consols. 3 per ct. Annuities, 1726. New 3¼ per ct. New 5 per ct. Long Annuities, expire 1860. Long Annuities, 30 Years exp. 1859. Long Annuities, 30 Years. exp. 1860. India Stock. South Sea Stock. Exchequer Bills, £1,000.

1846: November, { 206½ 93⅞ 95 94 95⅞ 118 9⅞ 9¾ 10⅛ 258 103⅞ 14s. at 1½d.

{ 204 93⅛ 94 94 95⅛ 118 9 9 10 255 103⅞ 6s. pm.

December, { 207¼ 94⅞ 95½ 94⅞ 96½ 121 9⅞ 9¾ 10⅛ 254¾ 105¼ 14s. ”

{ 205 93⅞ 95 94¼ 95⅝ 121 9 9 10 254¾ 104¼ 8s. ”

1847: January, { 206½ 94 93¾ 91¾ 95¾ 114 9⅞ 9¾ 9¾ 254¾ 103¾ 15s. ”

{ 203½ 90¾ 91⅛ 91 93 114 9 9 9 249 100 5s. ”

February, { 205 91⅝ 91½ 89⅜ 93½ 9⅝ 9½ 9½ 251 101¼ 10s. ”

{ 202½ 90⅝ 90⅜ 89¾ 92⅜ 9 9⅜ 9 249 100¼ par.

March, { 205½ 91½ 90⅞ 88¾ 93⅜ 9⅝ 9⅜ 9⅝ 251 99¼ 7s. pm.

{ 203½ 90⅝ 88⅛ 88¾ 90⅞ 9 9⅜ 9⅛ 250 99¼ 1s. ”

April, { 200½ 87⅜ 88¼ 88⅝ 118 9⅛ 8⅞ 9¾ 246½ 97⅜ 10s. at 2d.

{ 190 84⅜ 85⅛ 86 118 8⅞ 8¾ 9¼ 244 95½ 1s. pm.

May, { 196 87½ 88⅝ 85⅜ 89⅛ 117 9 8¾ 9¼ 244 98½ 10s. dis.

{ 188 85¼ 86⅜ 85⅜ 87 117 8⅞ 8¾ 9 240 96¾ par.

June, { 197½ 89½ 88⅞ 91¼ 118 9⅛ 9⅜ 9½ 246 12s. pm.

{ 195 86¾ 87¾ 88⅝ 113 9 8⅞ 9⅜ 246 3s. ”

July, { 198 89½ 89¼ 87¾ 91⅝ 115 9⅛ 8⅞ 8⅞ 246½ 98⅝ 15s. ”

{ 195 88⅛ 88 86⅞ 90⅜ 115 9 8⅞ 8¾ 244 97⅜ 10s. ”

August, { 198 89 88⅝ 90¾ 118 9⅛ 9 8⅞ 244 98⅝ 10s. ”

{ 195 86⅞ 86¼ 88⅝ 118 9 8¾ 8½ 239 95⅛ 2s. ”

September, { 197½ 88¼ 87½ 89⅝ 112 9⅛ 9 8¾ 241 17s. ”

{ 195½ 86¾ 85⅛ 88¼ 112 9 8⅞ 8¾ 236 11s. ”

October, { 186 82⅞ 85¾ 83⅜ 115 8½ 8½ 8¾ 238 par.

{ 180 78¼ 79¼ 79½ 115 8 7⅝ 8⅜ 238 30s. dis.

1847: November, { 189 83⅞ 85½ 85½ 8⅝ 8¼ 8¾ 235 93¾ 2s. pm. at 2d.

{ 185 81 82 81¾ 8⅛ 8 8½ 228 91¼ 20s. dis.

December, { 189 85⅜ 86 86¾ 8⅝ 8½ 8⅞ 235 94½ 12s. pm. at 3d.

{ 186½ 84 85½ 85½ 8½ 8⅜ 8 235 92½ 2s. pm.

1848: January, { 202 89⅞ 89½ 90⅜ 90¾ 114 9 8¾ 8½ 243 96 35s. ”

{ 187 84⅞ 85⅞ 89¼ 86 108½ 8⅝ 8½ 8⅝ 227 93 12s. ”

February, { 202 89⅞ 89⅞ 87½ 90¾ 9 8⅞ 8¾ 245 98 41s. ”

{ 191 81¾ 81½ 82½ 8½ 8⅝ 8¼ 230 95¾ 5s. ”

March, { 194 82⅞ 83⅜ 79⅞ 83¼ 8⅞ 8½ 8½ 253 89¾ 35s. ”

{ 191 80¼ 80⅝ 82⅞ 8⅝ 8⅜ 8¼ 86 13s. ”

April, { 189 81 82⅝ 82¾ 104 8⅜ 8¼ 8½ 231½ 88¼ 45s. pm. at 2½d.

{ 185½ 78½ 80 79½ 8⅛ 8 8¼ 227 85 33s. pm.

May, { 193 82¾ 84⅜ 82½ 83⅞ 108 8⅝ 8⅜ 8¾ 234 92⅝ 47s. ”

{ 189 81½ 83¼ 80⅛ 82½ 107 8⅜ 8⅛ 8½ 229 90 30s. ”

June, { 193 84½ 84¾ 81½ 85 111 8¾ 8⅝ 8¾ 234 92⅝ 41s. pm. at 2d.

{ 189 82¼ 83⅞ 81 83¼ 8¼ 8⅛ 231 90⅛ 32s. pm.

July, { 198½ 89 88⅞ 84 89⅛ 109 9⅛ 8⅞ 8⅝ 245 97½ 52s. ”

{ 190 85 85⅞ 85⅝ 8⅜ 8½ 8⅜ 239 96⅛ 32s. ”

August, { 199 87½ 87⅛ 87¾ 112 9 8⅝ 8¾ 243 97¼ 39s. ”

{ 196 85¼ 85⅜ 85⅜ 109 8⅝ 8⅜ 8⅜ 238 21s. ”

September, { 198 86⅜ 86¼ 87¼ 8⅞ 8⅝ 8⅝ 240 95 31s. ”

{ 196 85⅞ 85⅝ 86½ 8¾ 8½ 8½ 235 22s. ”

October, { 190 84¾ 86¾ 84¼ 85⅛ 112 8½ 8½ 8¾ 237 95¼ 40s. ”

{ 183 83¼ 84⅛ 84⅛ 84 108½ 8¼ 8⅛ 8½ 234 92¾ 29s. ”

1848: November, { 190 86¼ 87½ 85⅜ 89 8½ 8⅝ 8⅞ 237 95⅞ 45s. pm. at 2d.

{ 188 84⅝ 85⅞ 85⅜ 8½ 8⅜ 8⅜ 232 94 36s. pm.

December, { 191½ 88⅞ 89⅜ 89⅜ 8⅞ 8⅝ 8⅞ 241 96¾ 42s. ”

{ 188½ 86¼ 87⅜ 89¼ 8¼ 8⅝ 8⅜ 237 94⅞ 37s. ”

1849: January, { 196 91⅝ 91¾ 88⅞ 92¼ 9 8⅞ 8¾ 245 98⅞ 51s. ”

{ 188½ 88⅞ 88⅞ 87¼ 89¼ 8¾ 8½ 8¼ 238¾ 96¾ 40s. ”

February, { 197¼ 94½ 94½ 95½ 120 9⅓ 8⅞ 8¾ 249 102 53s. ”

{ 193 91⅛ 91⅛ 92¼ 116 8⅞ 8⅝ 8¼ 243 100 39s. ”

March, { 196 92¾ 92¾ 93⅞ 119½ 9⅛ 8⅞ 8⅞ 245 100¾ 45s. ”

{ 193 91 90½ 91½ 8⅞ 8¾ 8½ 240 99⅛ 35s. ”

April, { 194 90⅞ 93¾ 90½ 91¾ 8⅝ 8⅜ 8¾ 248 101 49s. ”

{ 191½ 90 91⅛ 90 91 9⅛ 8¼ 8⅜ 243 44s. ”

May, { 195 91⅛ 92⅝ 91¾ 8⅝ 8⅜ 8¾ 250 100⅝ 49s. ”

{ 192½ 89¼ 90⅛ 90⅛ 8⅜ 8¼ 8¾ 245 99⅛ 44s. ”

June, { 195 92⅝ 92¾ 89¼ 92⅝ 8¾ 8½ 8⅞ 252 100¼ 48s. ”

{ 193½ 89¼ 90⅛ 90⅛ 8⅜ 8⅜ 8¾ 250 44s. ”

July, { 200 93¼ 93¾ 91⅜ 94⅛ 9 8⅝ 8⅝ 253¾ 103 51s. ”

{ 195 91½ 92⅛ 92¼ 8⅝ 8⅝ 8½ 251 102⅞ 44s. ”

August, { 200 93⅛ 93 90⅛ 94⅛ 118¼ 9 8¾ 8¾ 255½ 102¾ 51s. ”

{ 198½ 92 92½ 92⅝ 8⅝ 8⅝ 8½ 252 101¼ 40s. ”

September, { 200 92⅞ 92⅞ 89¼ 94 8⅞ 8⅝ 8⅞ 254 102⅜ 42s. ”

{ 199 92½ 93⅛ 93¾ 8⅜ 8⅝ 8½ 252 35s. ”

October, { 198½ 91¼ 92⅝ 91 92⅜ 8½ 8¼ 8½ 257 102½ 47s. ”

{ 196 90⅛ 91⅜ 90⅞ 91¾ 8⅜ 8⅛ 8¼ 254 100¾ 41s. ”

FOOTNOTES: