Mankind may be universally divided into two classes, the honest and
dishonest; for I admit of no medium. That those distinctions have
existed from the very remotest periods, I believe no one will deny;
therefore it is perfectly natural to suppose, that depraved and idle
wretches, who would rather steal the effects of another than labour
to acquire property for themselves, have infested London, from the
hour in which an hundred persons inhabited it in huts or caverns. How
those depredators on Society were treated by the Cits of very very very
antient times is not worth enquiry; but that death was often inflicted
cannot be doubted; and that might be effected by twenty different
methods. Strangulation was certainly used before the time of Henry I.
in London: punishment for crimes of inferior magnitude are always
species of torture; to repeat the probable modes would be far from
pleasant.
Whatever may have been the other inventions of the idle to obtain
bread, that of begging in all its ramifications was the most antient;
the fraternity of mendicants have resisted every attempt to dissolve
their body, nor will they vanish till the last day shall remove every
living creature from the surface of the earth. After the establishment
of Christianity, flocks of Christians determined to devote themselves
to the service of the Lord _in their way_, and work no more; such were
some orders of Monks and Friars mendicants! The monasteries afterwards,
acting upon a mistaken idea of charity, gave alms, and fed the poor and
idle indiscriminately at their gates: thus a wretch might invigorate
his body with the viands of the Abbots and Monks in the day, and pass
the night in attacks upon the defenceless traveller, perhaps often
relieved in presence of the depredator by the blind religious.
In vain have the Monarch, the Law, and the Judge, from the days of the
Aborigines down to the present moment, exerted their authority and
terrors; and I am compelled, for brevity's sake, to confine myself
to the disgraceful acts of a single century. To mention the numbers
who were condemned at the Old Bailey in 14 years from 1700, will be
sufficient, without particularizing their crimes.
Years. Condemned. Executed.
1701 118 4 died after conviction 66
1702 49 13
1703 38 18
1704 35 17
1705 44 16
1706 33 5
1707 23 18
1708 34 18
1709 39 10
1710 36 8
1711 36 13
1712 43 15
1713 60 25
1714 108 59
--- ---
696 Reprieved 391 301
In the mayoralty of Sir Francis Child, 1732, 502 persons were indicted
at the Old Bailey; 70 of whom received sentence of death; 208 of
transportation; eight fined, imprisoned, or pilloried; four burnt in
the hand; four whipped; and 288 acquitted.
In 1722, ten pounds reward was offered by the Clerk of the New River
Company, for the apprehension of persons who had wantonly tapped the
pipes, and others that had cut the banks to let water on their own
possessions.
Lotteries.--These pernicious contrivances to raise money were in full
vigour at the commencement of the century. There was the "Greenwich
Hospital adventure," sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, which the
managers describe as "liable to none of the objections made against
other Lotteries, _as to the fairness_ of the drawing, it being not
possible there should be any deceit in it, _as it has been suspected
in others_." Mr. Sydenham's Land Lottery, who declared it was "found
very difficult and troublesome for the adventurers for to search and
find out what prizes they have come up in their number tickets, _from
the badness of the print_, the _many errors in them_, and the _great
quantity of the number of the prizes_:" the Twelve-penny or Nonsuch:
and "the Fortunatus."
Esquire Sydenham's lady's gentlewoman obtained an estate worth 600_l.
per annum_, in her master's Lottery; but the unfortunate holders of
blanks, suspecting foul play, advertized an intended meeting on the
11th January 1700, for the purpose of entering into an investigation
of their real or fancied wrongs. This produced a denial on the part
of his Trustees, but did not prevent the meeting from taking place,
when it was unanimously resolved to appoint an eminent goldsmith in
Lombard-street cashier, for the receipt of subscriptions to carry their
purposes into effect; which being accomplished, they exhibited a Bill
in Chancery against the unfortunate Squire[90:A].
Guinea-dropping was practised in 1700; and it was customary for thieves
to carry cocks into retired or vacant places to throw at them, in
order to collect spectators, and empty their pockets. The following
extract from the Protestant Mercury of February 14, 1700, point out
three of those places of iniquity: "Last Tuesday, a Brewer's servant
in Southwark took his walks round _Tower-hill_, _Moor-fields_, and
_Lincoln's-Inn-fields_, and knocked down so many cocks, that, by
selling them again, he returned home twenty-eight shillings odd pence a
richer man than he came out."
In collecting materials for this portion of my review of London, order
and regularity are unnecessary; cheats, impostors, knaves, and thieves,
members of one great family, will be indiscriminately introduced, with
their schemes and crimes to mark _them_, and the cullibility of the
good Citizens of London, a large portion of whom are ever ready to
catch at the most silly and absurd baits, provided they happen to agree
with their pursuits. Money-lenders, those excellent members of Society,
the friends of youth, the alleviators of distress, who hold forth their
thousands to the publick, merely with a view to accommodate the wants
of their countrymen, and without the least wish of private advantage
to themselves, were known to the inhabitants of this Metropolis at the
period from which I date my present researches. The reader will find
a wonderful similarity in the ensuing advertisement to some of very
recent date. "From our house, New Tuttle-street, near the Royal-oak,
Westminster, or Young Man's Coffee-house, at Charing-cross, in the
morning. All gentlemen and others that have business in Treasury,
Admiralty, or Navy offices, or any of the Courts of Law or Equity, may
have it faithfully solicited. We buy and sell estates, _help persons to
money_ on good security. We help persons to employments, &c. and have
now several to be disposed of, of 400_l._ 100_l._ 80_l._ 60_l._ 40_l.
per annum_[92:A]; any that shall give in timely notice of places to be
disposed of shall be rewarded for the same. _And because many have been
defrauded of considerable sums of money_ by one that lately printed
from Salisbury-court, Fleet-street; that none may be served so that
apply themselves to us, _nor the reputation of this undertaking ruined,
because ill men have had the management of it_, we shall not take our
gratuity, _till we have done their business_; which must be allowed to
be a candid acknowledgment of _our intention_."
In so populous a City as London, no place is sacred from the contrivances
of Sharpers. Even plate used at the Coronation feast of Queen Anne, in
Westminster-hall, April 1702, was stolen, with table-linen and a great
deal of pewter[92:B].
To second the operations of the Royal Proclamation for the Suppression
of Vice, certain well-disposed Citizens entered into the following
agreement, to promote the Reformation of Manners.
"We whose names are hereunto subscribed, out of a sense of the duty we
owe to Almighty God, in pursuance of His Majesty's Proclamation for the
discouragement and prosecution of debauchery and prophaneness, and for
the suppressing of them, do agree as followeth:
"That we meet weekly at ----, under the penalty of ---- each default
without a just cause; to consult how we may be most serviceable
in promoting the execution of the Laws against prophaneness and
debauchery. That we use all proper means to prevail with men of
all ranks to concur with us in this design, especially such as are
under the obligation of oaths to do so; and in order to their acting
vigorously therein, that we endeavour to persuade them to form
themselves into Societies, at least to have frequent meetings for this
purpose.
"That we encourage and assist officers in the discharge of their
duty, of discovering disorderly houses, of taking up of offenders,
and carrying them before the magistrates, and, moreover, endeavour to
assist both magistrates and officers, by giving information ourselves
as we have opportunity.
"That, for order sake, every Member in his turn be Chairman (unless any
desire to be excused) for four successive days of meeting; that as soon
as four members are met, the Chairman, or, in his absence, the next in
order upon the list (that shall be made for that purpose) shall take
his place: and that from that time to the breaking up of the meeting,
we forbear all discourse of public news or our private affairs, as also
all unnecessary disputes upon speculative and controversial points of
Religion.
"That when any thing is proposed and seconded, the Chairman shall put
it to the question, which shall be determined by the majority; and such
determination shall remain till altered by a majority upon another
meeting.
"That, if upon any matter in debate the voices are equal, the question
shall be again proposed by the Chairman at the same meeting, if more of
the members come in, or otherwise at the next or some other meeting.
"That it be part of the office of the Chairman to take notice of the
breach of any of our orders, to enquire of every member how he hath
discharged the business that was allotted him at the last meeting,
and what difficulties he hath met with, in order to find out proper
remedies. To read over the agreement of this Society once a month. To
read over the minutes of what hath been resolved upon at the end of
every meeting, and the list of the members; and to go or send to such
as have been absent twice successively, without a just excuse known to
some member of the Society; and, the next time any such persons shall
be present, the Chairman for the time being shall put them in mind of
the great importance of the business they are engaged in, and of the
obligations they have laid themselves under by their subscriptions to
attend the meetings of this Society.
"That we endeavour to find out proper persons to be brought into
this Society; and that no member shall be proposed for a member but
when four or more of the Society are present; and that none shall be
admitted into this Society till he hath been proposed by three several
meetings, and are thought to be men of piety and temper; and that after
any person hath been proposed a second time for a member, two persons
shall be appointed by the major part of the Society to make enquiry
concerning his life and conversation.
"That in cases of difficulty that shall occur, we consult the learned
in the Law, or other proper persons, that we by no means go further
than the Law will warrant us.
"That we keep an exact account of our proceedings in a book kept for
that purpose.
"That the debates and resolutions of the Society be kept secret; and,
therefore, no person shall be admitted to be present at any debate, in
any meeting, that is not a member, unless upon special occasion, and by
agreement of the majority present.
"That we look upon ourselves as under a peculiar obligation to pray for
the Reformation of the Nation in general, and to implore the Divine
direction and blessing upon this our undertaking in particular[96:A]."
Every man may be considered as included within this class, who hazards
a falsehood to forward his views, whether they are in the course of
trade, or deviate into cheating. Mr. Sheridan, in the Critick, forcibly
exposes the various kinds of puffs used by Tradesmen and Authors;
and he classes them very justly into the puff direct, indirect, &c.
The first instance which occurs of a case in point, after 1700, is
the following from a Hair-dresser, which fraternity is notorious for
extreme modesty and truth in their addresses to the publick: "Whereas
a pretended Hair-cutter, between the Maypole in the Strand and St.
Clement's church, hath, without any provocation, maliciously abused
Jenkin Cuthbeartson behind his back, at several persons' houses, and
at his own shop, which hath been very much to his disadvantage, by
saying that he was a pitiful fellow and a blockhead, and that he did
not understand how to cut hair or shave: I therefore, the said Jenkin
Cuthbeartson, think myself obliged to justify myself, and _to let the
world know_ that I do understand my trade so far, that I challenge the
aforesaid pretended hair-cutter, or any that belongs to him, either to
shave or cut hair, or any thing that belongs to the trade, for five
or ten pounds, to be judged by two sufficient men of our trade, as
witness my hand this 9th day of November, 1702, Jenkin Cuthbeartson,
King-street, Westminster[97:A]."
Fellows who pretended to calculate Nativities were to be met with
in several parts of London at the same period: they sold ridiculous
inventions which they termed _Sigils_; and the possessor of those
had but to fancy they would protect themselves and property, and the
object of the Conjurer was accomplished. Almanack John obtained great
celebrity in this art. It appears that he was a Shoe-maker, and resided
in the Strand. This fellow, and others of his fraternity, preyed upon
fools or very silly people only; their losses were therefore of little
moment, and the turpitude of Almanack John was not quite so great as
that of the villains who affected illness and deformity, thus to rob
the charitable, whose gifts would otherwise have been directed to the
relief of the _real_ sufferer.
The reader will presently perceive that, in one instance, the depravity
of the community of Beggars is but too stationary since 1702. "That
people may not be imposed upon by Beggars who pretend to be lame, dumb,
&c. which really are not so; this is to give notice, that the President
and Governors for the poor of London, pitying the case of one Richard
Alegil, a boy of 11 years of age, who pretended himself lame of both
his legs, so that he used to go shoving himself along on his breech;
they ordered him to be taken into their workhouse, intending to make
him a taylor, upon which he confessed that his brother, a boy of 17
years of age, about four years ago, by the advice of other beggars,
contracted his legs, and turned them backwards, so that he never used
them from that time to this, but followed the trade of begging; that
he usually got 5_s._ a day, sometimes 10_s._; that he hath been all
over the counties, especially the West of England, where his brother
carried him on a horse, and pretended he was born so, and cut out of
his mother's womb. He hath also given an account that he knows of other
beggars that pretend to be dumb and lame, and of some that tie their
arms in their breeches, and wear a wooden stump in their sleeve. The
said President and Governors have caused the legs of the said Alegil to
be set straight; he now has the use of them, and walks upright; they
have ordered him to be put to spinning, and his brother to be kept to
hard labour. Several other able beggars are by their order taken up and
set to work, and when brought into the Workhouse have from 10_s._ to
5_l._ in their pockets."
A person during the fair of 1703 had the audacity to advertise, that
the spoils taken at Vigo were to be seen for sixpence at his booth;
and he imposed upon the public curiosity by exhibiting fictitious
representations of an Altar-piece of silver, with six Angels in full
proportion, four Apostles supporting the four pillars, and four Angels
attending them, with each a lamp for incense in their hands; also
a Crown set with valuable stones, a Holy-water pot garnished with
filligree-work, &c. &c. "_all brought from Vigo_, having been first
lodged in the Tower, _and never exposed before but in the Tower_."
John Bonner, of Short's Gardens, had the barefaced effrontery, in 1703,
to offer his assistance, by necromancy, to those who had lost any thing
at Sturbridge Fair, at Churches or other assemblies, "he being paid for
his labour and expences."
The Corporation of London aimed a severe blow, in the same year, at
impostors and sturdy beggars, by offering a reward of one shilling
each for such as were apprehended, and sent to the Workhouse in
Bishopsgate-street.
The Post-boy of July 21, 1711, contains the following paragraph: "It is
thought proper to give notice of a common notorious cheat frequently
practised by men who pretend to be soldiers, and others, in a game by
them called Cups and Balls, particularly at the wall next the Mewsgate,
within the Verge of the Court."
At a petty Sessions for Westminster held in April 1714, an account
was returned from the proper officers of the receipt of 42_l._ in the
preceding six months, as penalties for profanations of the Sabbath,
swearing, and drunkenness.
There was a place of resort for the vicious, called the Cave, at
Highgate, which was indicted, and the indictment opposed by the
proprietors, in a trial before Lord Chief Justice Parker, December
1714; but the defendants lost the cause, and the Cave was suppressed,
to the satisfaction, as a paragraph expresses it in the Flying Post, of
those "who are enemies to such a nursery of profaneness and debauchery."
A shocking instance of depravity occurred in March 1718. A Quaker
potter, of the name of Oades, who resided in Gravel-lane, Southwark,
had four sons, whom he admitted into partnership with him, and at the
same time suffered them to carry on business on their own account.
This method of proceeding naturally led to jealousies and envy on both
sides, which increased to a degree of rancour, that the father and sons
appear to have acted towards each other as if no connection subsisted
between them. The immediate cause of the horrid event that renders the
tale odious, was the arrest of Oades by his sons, for the violation
of the peace, which they had bound him in a penalty to observe, and
the consequent expulsion of their mother from her dwelling. This
act attracted the notice of the populace, who seldom fail to adopt
the right side of a question of justice, and as usual they began to
execute summary vengeance on the house. The sons, an attorney, and
another person, secured themselves within it, whence they read the
Riot Act, and fired immediately after; a bullet entered the head of
a woman, who fell dead; the assault then became more furious, and
persons were sent for Mr. Lade, a Justice; that gentleman bailed the
father, and commanded the sons to submit in vain: he therefore found it
necessary to send for a guard of Soldiers, who arrived and commenced
a regular siege, but the fortress was not stormed till two o'clock in
the morning, when a courageous fellow scaled a palisade on the back
part of the house, and admitted his party, who rushed in, and secured
the garrison. The son of Oades, who shot the woman, was tried for the
murder, found guilty, but pardoned on his father's intercession,
provided he banished himself.
The villain who occasioned the ensuing advertisement mixed cruelty
with his fraud. "Whereas a person who went by the name of Dr. Cock,
did about two months since come to Mrs. Robinson, in Putney, being
indisposed; he pretended to come from an acquaintance of hers from
London to give her advice; accordingly he applied a plaster to her
stomach, by which she has received a great deal of injury. He had for
his fee ten shillings, and demanded six shillings for his plaster; it
is supposed he took a handkerchief with him and a shirt. It appearing
that nobody sent him, whoever can give notice of him, &c."
The next Sharper upon _public_ record worthy notice was Jones, a
footman, who had contrived to attract the favours of the lady of
Esquire Dormer, of Rousam, Oxfordshire, a gentleman worth 3500_l.
per annum_; which being discovered by the injured husband, an action
was commenced for Crim. Con. against the party-coloured enamorato,
and pursued to conviction; but, just as sir Thomas Cross, the foreman
of the Jury, was about to pronounce the tremendous sound of 5000_l._
damages, or, in other words, imprisonment for life, master Jones rushed
through the Hall, flew to a boat, was rowed across the Thames, and took
sanctuary in the Mint, before the Lord Chief Justice's Tip-staff could
prevent him.
An escape accomplished by a still greater villain in 1716, was far more
extraordinary: a highwayman, named Goodman, had been apprehended with
great exertion and difficulty, and brought to trial at the Old Bailey,
where the Jury pronounced him guilty; but, at the instant their verdict
was given, he sprang over the enclosure, and eluded every endeavour to
arrest his progress.
Such was the daring folly of this man, that he frequently appeared
in public, and presuming on his supposed security, actually went to
Mackerel's Quaker Coffee-house in Bartlett's-buildings, for the purpose
of procuring the arrest of a Carrier, to whom he had intrusted 16_l._
to be conveyed to his wife in the country, and who, supposing Goodman
would be hanged, had converted it to his own use: there he met an
Attorney by appointment, and stationed four desperadoes at the door
armed with pistols, in order to repel any attempt at seizing him. The
Attorney, aware of his precaution, listened to the case of the Carrier,
and studiously avoided betraying him; but the instant Goodman departed,
he declared who his client was, upon which several persons watched the
wretch to his place of concealment, where they attacked him, and he
them, with the utmost resolution; after a severe conflict, in which the
assailants were compelled to bruise him dreadfully, he was secured;
but, throwing himself down in the streets, they were at last compelled
to bind and carry him in a cart to prison: he was hanged not long
after[104:A].
The Mistress of Child's Coffee-house was defrauded of a considerable
sum, in September 1716, by an artful stratagem. She received a note by
the Penny-post, which appeared to come from Dr. Mead, who frequented
her house; saying, that a parcel would be sent there for him from
Bristol, containing choice drugs, and begging her to pay the sum of
6_l._ 11_s._ to the bearer of it. The reader will probably anticipate
the _denouement_; the bundle was brought, the money paid; the Doctor
declared his ignorance of the transaction, the parcel was opened, and
the contents found to be ---- rags[104:A].
It is not often that thefts can be narrated which are calculated to
excite a smile; and yet I am much mistaken if the reader doth not relax
his risible faculties, when he is informed of a singular method of
stealing wigs, practised in 1717. This I present him _verbatim_ from
the Weekly Journal of March 30. "The Thieves have got such a villainous
way now of robbing gentlemen, that they cut holes through the backs
of Hackney coaches, and take away their wigs, or fine head-dresses of
gentlewomen; so a gentleman was served last Sunday in Tooley-street,
and another but last Tuesday in Fenchurch-street; wherefore, this may
serve for a caution to gentlemen or gentlewomen that ride single in
the night-time, to sit on the fore-seat, which will prevent that way of
robbing."
The first notice of Mr. Law, the chief Director of the Royal Bank at
Paris, that I have met with, was in August 1717; when it was said he
had betted that the French State-bills would not fall 10 _per cent._
within a year, and given 10 Louis to receive 100 if he won; he offered
the earl of Stair 100 for 1000 in the same way, which was refused; and
the event proved, that the bills fell 50 _per cent._
Gaming was dreadfully prevalent in 1718. This will be demonstrated by
the effect of one night's search by the Leet Jury of Westminster, who
presented no less than 35 houses to the Justices for prosecution.
The Society for the Reformation of Manners published the ensuing
effects of their labours for one year, ending in December 1718.
Prosecuted for lewd and disorderly practices, 1253.
Keeping of bawdy and disorderly houses, 31.
Exercising their trades or callings on the Lord's-day, 492.
Profane swearing and cursing, 202.
Drunkenness, 17.
Keeping common gaming-houses, 8.
We have now arrived at a grand æra of villainy, the golden harvest of
scheming, in which Mr. Law acted the first part in France. A person
under the signature of Publicus, in the Thursday's Journal of December
17, 1719, very justly observes: "If any of the days of us or our
forefathers might be called the _projecting_ age, I think this is the
time. If ever there was a nation that had been 23 years ruining itself
and recovered in a moment, this is the time. If ever a government paid
its debts without money, and exchanged all the cash in the kingdom
for bits of paper, which had neither anybody to pay them for, or any
intrinsic fund to pay themselves, this is the time. If ever a credit
was raised without a foundation, and built up to a height that not only
was likely to fall, but indeed was impossible to stand, this is the
time."
Speaking of Mr. Law, he says, "First, he has entirely restored credit
in France; or, as it may be said, he has planted credit in a soil where
credit never could thrive, and never did thrive before; I mean in a
tyrannic absolute government, a thing inconsistent with credit, and the
very name of it; for when was ever credit established to any degree,
where the Sovereign was able to seize upon the foundation on which it
stood, by his absolute power, and at his pleasure.
"2dly, He has established such a bank, and so fortified it with an
established settlement, and on such a stock, as nothing can come up to
it in the world, except only the Banks of London and Amsterdam.
"3dly, He has erected a Company immense and inimitable on a trifling
fund, and the trifle made up of the most precarious things that could
be then imagined, being State bills, Town-house rents, and public
funds, which in their own esteem were not at that time to be rated
at above 35 or 40 _per cent._ nor would they have fetched more to
have been sold then in open market; and these has he brought up to be
worth 2000_l. per cent._ in the same market where they were under
40 _per cent._ before. The man that has done all this was here but a
contemptible person, a Silversmith's son at Edinburgh, then a rake,
then a soldier, then a kind of bully, then a murderer; he was tried
at the Old Bailey for killing Mr. Wilson, commonly called _Beau_
Wilson, in a duel; he was condemned to be hanged, but found means to
break out of Newgate; some say he got out by a silver key, and from
thence made his escape into France: there he lived without character
and without employment, till entering into the schemes which he has
since laid open, and talking freely of them, it came to the ears of
the Regent, who employing some men to talk with him, and they finding
his head turned for great projects, he was heard by more considerable
persons, and finally by the Regent himself, with whom he established
these just maxims as fundamentals; namely: That a fund of credit was
equal to a fund of money. That credit might be raised upon personal
funds, not upon the publick, because the power was absolute. Upon these
foundations he first erected the Royal bank; which, having been done
by a subscription, and having a sufficient fund in specie to answer
all the bills on demand, began to take, and having stood several
severe shocks from the attempts of merchants and others to ruin its
reputation, established itself upon the punctual discharge of its first
credit, till by time it increased to such a magnitude as we now see it,
being able to pay bills as was tried by its enemy for a million and a
quarter, sterling, in one day. This Bank, being thus past the first
hazards, stands too fast for the power of art to shake it; and immense
sums being lodged with them, their payments are much safer than the
money in any man's pocket.
"This raised Mr. Law's fame to the pitch it is now at, and set him
above the power of all his enemies. From thence he grounded his
Mississippi project, got it filled up, joined it to the East-India
Company; undertook the whole coinage, embraced several other projects,
as a Royal fishery, the Tobacco farm, and at last the trade to Norway
for naval stores, deals, timber, &c.
"It is true that a stock advanced to 2000 _per cent._ may undertake any
thing; but depend upon it, a stock advanced to 2000 _per cent._ upon
no foundation, must at last come to nothing, and the only use is to
raise estates upon the first advance of it; and perhaps it may appear
at last, that the imaginary value of the stock declining in the humours
of the times, it will by no means be able to support itself, which,
whenever it happens, blows it up all at once."
Such were the prophetic reasonings of our observer, which the event
fully justified by the ruin of thousands in England. To authenticate
this assertion, I shall present the reader a succession of paragraphs
from the Newspapers, pointing out the ramifications from the parent
_stock_, and the facility with which the publick were imposed upon.
"Here has been the oddest bite put upon the Town that ever was heard
of. We having of late had several new subscriptions set on foot, for
raising great sums of money for erecting Offices of Insurance, &c.;
at length, some gentlemen, to convince the world how easy it was
for projectors to impose upon mankind, set up a pretended office in
Exchange-alley, for the receiving subscriptions for raising a million
of money to establish an _effectual_ Company of Insurers as they called
it. Upon which, the day being come to subscribe, the people flocked in,
and paid down 5_s._ for every 1000_l._ they subscribed, pursuant to the
Company's proposals; but, after some hundreds had so subscribed (that
the thing might be fully known), the gentlemen were at the expence to
advertise, that the people might have their money again without any
deductions; and to let them know that the persons who paid in their
money, contented themselves with a fictitious name, set by an unknown
hand to the receipts delivered out for the money so paid in; and that
the said name was composed only of the first letters of six persons
names concerned in the said publication." Weekly Packet, January 2,
1719-20.
The original Weekly Journal immediately after observes: "It was the
observation of a very witty knight many years ago, that the English
people were something like a flight of birds at a barn door; shoot
among them and kill ever so many, the rest shall return to the same
place in a very little time, without any remembrance of the evil that
had befallen their fellows. Thus the English, though they have had
examples enough in these latter times of people ruined by engaging
in Projects, yet they still fall in with the next that appears.
Thus, after Neal's Lottery, how many were trumped up in a year or
two's time, till the Legislature itself was fain to suppress them.
Sometime after this, there was a new project set on foot for the
prodigious improvement of small sums of money, in which they who put
in, for example, 5_l._ must by the proposal make above 100_l._ of it
in a year's time. People never examined how they could perform this
proposal; but, blind with the hopes of gain, threw their money into the
Denmark-court Office in so extravagant a manner, that, if the humour
could have gone on, they must have had passed through their hands in
a few months half the cash of the nation. The success of this Office
begot many more in all parts of the Town, all which ended in the ruin
of many families.
"Our cunning men are now carrying on a cause very much like these that
are past, but infinitely more extravagant than all of them; though I
believe it will prove less detrimental than any of them, because they
are already multiplied to that degree, that the sharpers, _alias_
projectors, are infinitely too numerous for the bubbles; since the
Stocks they have proposed to raise amounts to 28,000,000_l._; above
twice as much as the current coin of the Nation, nay more than the
third-part of all the payments the circulation of that current coin
performs in the whole kingdom; but, because the placing these projects
all in one view must certainly be useful to your readers, I here send
you an abstract of them.
"For a general insurance on houses and merchandize, at the three Tuns,
Swithin's-alley, 2,000,000_l._
For building and buying ships to let or freight, at Garraway's,
Exchange-alley, 1,200,000_l._