THE GREAT EVENTS
BY
FAMOUS HISTORIANS
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
_With a staff of specialists_
_VOLUME XIII_
The National Alumni
Copyright, 1905, BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
[Illustration: The charge of the British at Quebec.
Painting by R. Caxton Woodville.]
CONTENTS
VOLUME XIII
PAGE
_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii
CHARLES F. HORNE
_John Law Promotes the Mississippi Scheme (A.D. 1716)_, 1
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
_Prince Eugene Vanquishes the Turks_
_Siege and Battle of Belgrad (A.D. 1717)_, 16
PRINCE EUGENE OF SAVOY
_Bursting of the South Sea Bubble (A.D. 1720)_, 22
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
_Bach Lays the Foundation of Modern Music (A.D. 1723)_, 31
HENRY TIPPER
_Settlement of Georgia (A.D. 1732)_, 44
WILLIAM B. STEVENS
_Rise of Methodism (A.D. 1738)_
_Preaching of the Wesleys and of Whitefield_, 57
WILLIAM E.H. LECKY
_Conquests of Nadir Shah_
_Capture of Delhi (A.D. 1739)_, 72
SIR JOHN MALCOLM
_First Modern Novel (A.D. 1740)_, 100
EDMUND GOSSE
_Frederick the Great Seizes Silesia (A.D. 1740)_
_Maria Theresa Appeals to the Hungarians_, 108
WILLIAM SMYTH
_Defeat of the Young Pretender at Culloden (A.D. 1746)_
_Last of the Stuarts_, 117
JUSTIN McCARTHY
_Benjamin Franklin Experiments with Electricity (A.D. 1747)_, 130
JOHN BIGELOW AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
_Voltaire Directs European Thought from Geneva (A.D. 1755)_, 144
JOHN MORLEY
GEORGE W. KITCHIN
_Braddock's Defeat (A.D. 1755)_, 163
WINTHROP SARGENT
GEORGE WASHINGTON
CAPTAIN DE CONTRECOEUR
_Exile of the Acadian Neutrals (A.D. 1755)_, 181
WILLIAM H. WITHROW
_Clive Establishes British Supremacy in India_
_Black Hole of Calcutta: Battle of Plassey (A.D. 1756)_, 185
SIR ALEXANDER J. ARBUTHNOT
_Seven Years' War (A.D. 1756-1763)_
_Battle of Torgau_, 204
WOLFGANG MENZEL
FREDERICK THE GREAT
_Conquest of Canada_
_Victory of Wolfe at Quebec (A.D. 1759)_, 229
A.G. BRADLEY
_Usurpation of Catharine II in Russia (A.D. 1762)_, 250
W. KNOX JOHNSON
_Conspiracy of Pontiac (A.D. 1763)_, 267
E.O. RANDALL
_American Colonies Oppose the Stamp Act (A.D. 1765)_
_Patrick Henry's Speech_, 299
JAMES GRAHAME
GEORGE BANCROFT
_Watt Improves the Steam-engine (A.D. 1769)_, 302
FRANÇOIS ARAGO
_First Partition of Poland (A.D. 1772)_, 313
JAMES FLETCHER
_The Boston Tea Party (A.D. 1773)_, 333
GEORGE BANCROFT
_Cotton Manufacture Developed (A.D. 1774)_, 341
THOMAS F. HENDERSON
_Intellectual Revolt of Germany_
_Goethe's_ Werther _Arouses Romanticism (A.D. 1775)_, 347
KARL HILLEBRAND
_Pestalozzi's Method of Education (A.D. 1775)_, 364
GEORGE RIPLEY
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1716-1775)_, 379
JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XIII
PAGE
_The charge of the British at Quebec (page 248)_,
Painting by R. Caton Woodville. Frontispiece
_The British officer reads the decree of exile of the Acadian
Neutrals, in the village church_, 184
Painting by Frank Dicksee.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
THE GREAT EVENTS
(FROM VOLTAIRE TO WASHINGTON)
CHARLES F. HORNE
During the eighteenth century a remarkable change swept over Europe. The
dominant spirit of the time ceased to be artistic as in the Renaissance,
or religious as in the Reformation, or military as during the savage
civil wars that had followed. The central figure of the world was no
longer a king, nor a priest, nor a general. Instead, the man on whom all
eyes were fixed, who towered above his fellows, was a mere author,
possessed of no claim to notice but his pen. This was the age of the
arisen intellect.
The rule of Louis XIV, both in its splendor and its wastefulness, its
strength and its oppression, its genius and its pride, had well prepared
the way for what should follow. Not only had French culture extended
over Europe, but the French language had grown everywhere to be the
tongue of polite society, of the educated classes. It had supplanted
Latin as the means of communication between foreign courts. Moreover,
the most all-pervading and obtrusive of French monarchs was succeeded by
the most retiring, the one most ready of all to let the world take what
course it would. Louis XV chanced to reign during this entire period,
from 1715 to 1774, and that is equivalent to saying that France, which
had become the chief state of Europe, was ungoverned, was only robbed
and bullied for the support of a profligate court. So long as citizens
paid taxes, they might think--and say--wellnigh what they pleased.
The elder Louis had realized something of the error of his own career
and had left as his last advice to his successor, to abstain from war.
We are told that the obedient legatee accepted the caution as his motto,
and had it hung upon his bedroom wall, where it served him as an
excellent excuse for doing nothing at all. His government was
notoriously in the hands of his mistresses, Pompadour and the others,
and their misrule was to the full as costly to France as the wars of the
preceding age. They drained the country quite as deeply of its resources
and renown; they angered and insulted it far more.
Meanwhile the misery of all Europe, caused by the continued warfare,
cried out for reform, demanded it imperatively if the human race were
not to disappear. The population of France had diminished by over ten
per cent. during the times of the "Grand Monarch"; the cost of the
Thirty Years' War to Germany we have already seen. Hence we find
ourselves in a rather thoughtful and anxious age. Even kings begin to
make some question of the future. Governments become, or like to call
themselves, "benevolent despotisms," and instead of starving their
subjects look carefully, if somewhat dictatorially, to their material
prosperity.
England, to be sure, but England alone, stands out as an exception to
the prevalence of despotic rule. There the commons had already won their
battle. King George I, the German prince whom they had declared their
sovereign after the death of Anne (1714), did not even know his
subjects' language, communicated with his ministers in barbaric Latin,
and left the governing wholly in their hands. The "cabinet" system thus
sprang up; the ministers were held responsible to Parliament and obeyed
its will. The exiled Stuart kings made one or two feeble attempts to win
back their throne, but the tide of progress was against them and their
last hope vanished in the slaughter of Culloden.[1]
By that defeat Great Britain was finally and firmly established as a
parliamentary government; and the most marked of all the physical
changes of the century was the rapid expansion of her power under this
new form of rule. She grew to be really "mistress of the seas," extended
her sceptre over distant lands, ceased to be an island, and became a
world-wide empire. Her trade increased enormously; her manufactures
developed. By his invention of the "spinning-jenny," Arkwright placed
England's cotton manufacture among the most giant industries of the
world.[2] The land grew vastly rich. It was her reward for political
progress, for having been able so to "get the start of the majestic
world."
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
At the opening of this period the talk of the town, both in Paris and in
London, ran on colonies and the tremendous wealth to be gained from them
as the Spaniards and the Dutch had done. During the minority of Louis
XV, even the Prince Regent of France dabbled in colonial investments.
The stock market became suddenly a prominent feature of politics. John
Law planned his dazzling "Mississippi Scheme," by which all Frenchmen
were to become millionaires. Only, unfortunately, the bubble burst, and
the industrious were ruined instead.[3] England had its "South Sea
Bubble," with the same madness of speculation, vanishing fortunes, and
blasted reputations.[4] The nobility having been driven by gunpowder
from their ancient occupation as warrior chiefs, having lost to kings
and people their rights as governors, became traders instead. We
approach a period in which they cease to be the leading order of
society, we approach the "reign of the middle classes."
From England, according to the English view, sprang also the great
intellectual movement of the age. Voltaire visited the England of
Addison and Pope; Montesquieu studied the English Constitution of 1689;
and these two men were the writers who overthrew absolutism in Europe,
who paved the way for the epoch of Revolution that was to follow.
Montesquieu's _Persian Letters_, satirizing French society, appeared as
early as 1721. Voltaire's sarcasms and witty sneers got him into trouble
with the French Government as early as 1715. He was imprisoned in the
Bastille, but released and at last driven from his country, a firebrand
cast loose upon Europe to spread the doctrine of man's equality, to cry
out everywhere for justice against oppression, and to mock with almost
satanic ingenuity against the religion in whose name Europe had plunged
into so many wars. By 1740 Voltaire was the most prominent figure of his
world, if we except perhaps the quarrelling sovereigns, Maria Theresa
and Frederick the Great. He dwelt for a time with Frederick in Berlin;
but the two disagreed as great potentates will, and Voltaire withdrew to
Geneva (1755), the little independent city republic which had served as
a refuge to so many fugitives on France's border.[5]
From Geneva, Voltaire corresponded with most of the crowned heads of
Europe. His advice was eagerly sought by "benevolent despotism." The aid
of his mighty pen was claimed by every victim of oppression. In Paris,
Diderot and his companions brought out the famous _Cyclopædia_, a mighty
monument of human learning indeed, but even more a mighty sermon against
tyranny, a scornful protest against Christianity, a teacher spreading
over all the earth the preachings of Voltaire.
If there was evil in this movement there was also good. Thought was
aroused, was stimulated, and everywhere the products of awakened genius
began to appear. The marvellous development of modern music had its
origin in this period with the creations of Bach.[6] The modern novel
began its tremendously important career with Richardson and Fielding.[7]
Inventive genius achieved the first great triumph of modern mechanicism
in Watt's steam-engine.[8] Even across the ocean spread the intellectual
impulse, and the New World had its Franklin to astonish and delight the
old with his experiments in electricity--childish experiments at first,
as man reached out slowly, shudderingly, toward control of this last and
most marvellous of his servants.[9]
Philanthropy awoke also. Serious folk began to have vague
self-questionings as to the righteousness of human slavery. The prison
system was investigated; in England there were vague attempts at its
reform. The noble Oglethorpe did what he could to arouse public
sentiment against imprisonment for debt, and in his own person led to
America a colony of the unfortunate victims of the system. They founded
Georgia, the latest of the colonies; and the chain of settlements along
the Atlantic coastline was complete.[10]
Who would find waste land to live on after that, must journey farther
west, must seek the interior of the new continent--a simple fact, but
one that was soon destined to produce tempestuous results.
In this age also, as if in answer to the spiritual apathy of which
Voltaire was only the expression, not the cause, there arose Methodism,
which in externals at least showed itself the most passionate and the
most expressive form of devotion to Christianity. Wesley and Whitefield,
the celebrated preachers, spread their doctrines over England in the
face of insult and persecution. They penetrated the American colonies;
their doctrines reached even beyond their language and affected the
entire European Continent. The revival of devotion may have been
hysterical, yet a vast revival it assuredly was; it has been called by
some critics the most important religious movement since the
Reformation.[11]
WARS OF EUROPE AND ASIA
In face of such events as these, we learn to attach less importance to
the schemes of kings, and their selfish territorial wars, horrible as
these may be in their exhibitions of human heartlessness and
blood-guilt, destructive as they have ever been in their consequences of
suffering and degeneration.
The Turks were now finally beaten back from their conquests in Hungary.
The war which they had begun with the siege of Vienna was continued by
the celebrated Austrian general, Prince Eugene, the companion of
Marlborough against Louis XIV. Eugene won victory after victory, and
finally by the capture of Belgrad (1717) drove the Mahometans forever
from Hungarian territory, reduced them from a universal menace to
become an ever-fading "Eastern question."[12]
Russia also, at first under Peter the Great and later under Catherine
II, began to reach out for Turkish territory. The Turks had risen by the
sword, and now, as other nations progressed and they stood still, the
power of the sword was failing them. Russia expanded toward the Black
Sea, as before she had expanded toward the Baltic, feeling out from her
boundaries everywhere, moving along the line of least resistance,
already looking toward Poland as her next tempting mouthful.
In Asia too the Turks had troubles to encounter. Asia, the vastly
productive, multitudinous through unprogressive, could still raise up
conquerors of the Turkish type to stand against them. The last of those
sudden waves of temporary, meaningless, barbarian conquest swept over
the Asian plains. Nadir Shah, a Persian bandit, freed his country from
the yoke of its Afghan tyrants, assumed its throne, and by repeated
battles enlarged his domains at Turkish expense. He subdued Afghanistan,
and then extending his attention to India made a sudden invasion of that
huge land, overthrew the forces of the Great Mogul, and, having captured
both him and his capital, permitted him to continue to reign as a sort
of subject prince. Returning from this distant expedition, Nadir Shah
was beginning to push his conquests over Northeastern Asia when he was
slain by a conspiracy among his Persian followers, driven to desperation
by his savage tyranny. His dominions fell to pieces with his death.[13]
Europe meanwhile was going through a series of wars which seem small
improvement over those of Nadir, except that they have had more polished
historians. The selfish principles of Louis XIV had not lost their
influence, the passion for territorial aggrandizement had not
disappeared. In all history it would be hard to find a war more brazen
in the avowed selfishness of its beginning, more utterly callous in its
persistence, than that into which all Europe plunged in 1740.
This astonishing turmoil is known as the War of the Austrian Succession.
We have seen how the extinction of the line of the Spanish Hapsburgs
had given rise to kingly jealousies and strife in 1700. Next the
Austrian Hapsburgs, or at least the male line of them, became extinct in
1740. Their surviving representative was a daughter, a young and
energetic woman, Maria Theresa, the "Empress Queen." Her father, the
Emperor Charles VI, foreseeing the difficulties she must encounter, had
during his lifetime made treaties with every important court of Europe,
by which he yielded them valuable concessions in return for their
guarantee that on his death his daughter should succeed to his throne
and his possessions undisturbed. Her husband was to be made emperor.
The moment Charles was gone, every treaty was thrown to the winds, and
every hand seemed extended by a common impulse to clutch what it could
from a woman's weakness.[14] The first to move was Frederick II, King of
Prussia, he whom his admirers have called the Great. He was a young man,
he had just succeeded to the Prussian kingdom which his father had left
peaceful and prosperous, guarded by a powerful and well-trained army,
made secure by a well-filled treasury. Young Frederick was undoubtedly
great in intellect and in cynical frankness. He saw his opportunity, he
made no pretence of keeping his promises; marching his army forward he
seized the nearest Austrian province, the rich and extensive land of
Silesia. The other kingdoms rushed to get their share of the spoils;
France, Bavaria, Saxony, Sardinia, and Spain formed an alliance with
Prussia. Only England, in her antagonism to France, made protest--purely
diplomatic. Austria was assailed from every side. Her overthrow seemed
certain. A French army was within three days' march of Vienna; it
captured the Bohemian capital, Prague.
It was then that Maria Theresa made her famous appeal to the Hungarians,
and the impressionable Magyars swore to die in her defence. She gathered
armies, Austrian and Hungarian. She made a desperate alliance with
Frederick, consenting to give him Silesia so as to save her other
domains. The members of the coalition quarrelled among themselves. The
French were driven to a disastrous retreat from Prague. Louis XV
remembered his disapproval of war, as soon as it became disastrous; and
the whole assault on the Empress Queen faded away as selfishly as it had
risen.
The only result was that Frederick had Silesia, and Maria Theresa
intended to have it back; and so they plotted and plotted, fought and
fought. War followed war, and battle, battle. Silesia became a desert at
last and of little value to either party. As to the Silesians who had
once existed there, a few of them escaped starvation and massacre, not
many, some hundred thousands, a mere matter of figures this in the
kingly game and not accurately kept count of.
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
The final upshot of this Silesian argument was the Seven Years' War.
Maria Theresa made friends with the mistress of Louis XV, and so secured
a French alliance. Frederick offended the Empress of Russia by his witty
tongue, and she also joined in the "ladies' war" against him. Saxony,
the nearest state to Prussia, was ever on the side of the strongest. So
here was the European coalition hurled against Frederick in his turn. He
proved the ablest general of his age, one of the master minds of
military skill. For seven years he withstood all his enemies, Austria
and Russia mainly, for Saxony he soon conquered, and France showed no
great military powers--disgraced herself if further disgrace were
possible to her condition.
Over the military details of the contest we need not pause.[15] Prussia
had always been regarded as one of the lesser European states, Austria
and France as the chief powers. Russia now proved herself of equal
weight with the greatest, so that even the genius of Frederick began to
fail against the enormous odds which crushed him down. His land was laid
waste, his capital seized by a sudden attack and held for ransom. He was
saved by the death of the Russian Empress; her son and successor, an
admirer of Frederick, promptly changed sides in the war. By degrees
everyone abandoned it but Maria Theresa; and she, finding her single
strength insufficient against Prussia, was compelled to yield at last.
Frederick kept his dear-bought desert of Silesia.
This Seven Years' War caused what that of the Austrian Succession had
attempted, a complete redistribution of the balance of European power,
England, Russia, and Prussia rising to at least equality with Austria
and France. Even before the opening of the formal war France and England
had been engaged in a colonial strife, which had caused England to
declare herself Frederick's ally; and, while in Europe the grapple
between England and France did not assume serious proportions, it was of
enormous consequence to their colonies in India and America.
In India both countries had trading-stations, but the French were
popular with the natives and the English were not. The weakness of the
native support was not realized by either party. The conquests of Nadir
Shah were scarcely known to them; the name of the Great Mogul at Delhi
was one of vagueness and mysterious power; it seemed to the French that
with Indian aid they could easily drive the English into the sea; and
the attempt was made. It must have been successful but for Clive. That
remarkable young warrior rose from his subordinate desk, laid aside his
clerkly pen, and gathering a little band of fighters round him, defeated
both French and natives in the remarkable siege of Arcot. Then came the
hideous tale of the "black hole of Calcutta," and Clive achieved revenge
and completed his work of conquest at Plassey (1757).[16]
Centuries had elapsed since Europeans had encountered, in serious
battle, any Asiatics except the Turks--and these had proved quite equal
to the strife. Hence the vast superiority which the more progressive
civilization had attained was little realized. The American aborigines
had indeed fallen an easy prey to Europe, but the conquest of Asia and
Africa had not yet been begun. Thus the victories of Clive seemed to his
contemporaries even more marvellous than they were. They won for England
not only an empire in India, but a high prestige in Europe also.
WAR IN AMERICA
In America the British success was equally decisive though more dearly
bought. Here the war had originated in the Ohio valley. Finding no more
room upon the coast, the English colonists were pressing westward and
there met the French. The vast wilderness which had lain unoccupied for
centuries, even though men knew of its existence, now became suddenly of
importance. Frenchmen needed it for their fur trade; Britons for
colonization. They fought for it.
Here as in India the natives had been won by the diplomatic French, but
their aid proved of no avail. The British Parliament sent over General
Braddock in 1757, and he perished with a large portion of his army in
the celebrated ambuscade from which Washington escaped.[17] For a time
French energy made the war seem not unequal; but the number of French in
America was small; the home Government of Louis XV seemed wholly lost in
sloth and indifferent to the result. The English Government was doggedly
resolute. Its unwilling subjects, the French colonists of Acadia, were
driven from their homes.[18] Troops were poured into America, and in
1759 Wolfe won his famous victory at Quebec.[19] The next year Montreal
also fell into the hands of the British, and the conquest of Canada was
complete.
The treaty of 1763, which ended the Seven Years' War for Prussia,
brought peace also between England and France. The latter surrendered
her colonial pretensions, partly in India, wholly in America, without
having really exerted herself to retain them. Perhaps her experience in
the Mississippi Scheme of Law had convinced her they were of but little
worth.
SUPREMACY OF FREDERICK THE GREAT
The latter half of the reign of Frederick the Great was very different
from its beginning. He had encountered war sufficient to satiate even
his reckless appetite, and he clung to peace. Prussia became for a while
the centre of European government and intrigue; and Frederick, by far
the ablest sovereign of his time, remained until his death (1786) the
leader in that system of paternal government, of kindly tyranny, which
typifies the age. He husbanded the resources of his country with jealous
care; he compelled his people to work, and be provident, and prosper,
whether they would or no. Maria Theresa treated her subjects with much
the same benevolence; and her son and successor Joseph II became the
most ardent of the admirers of Frederick. Russia also came under a ruler
of similar ideas, Catharine II,[20] a German princess by birth, who
wedded a czar, deposed him, and, ruling in his stead, became the most
Russian of the Russians. She ruled her land wisely and well, with a
little more than Frederick's tyranny, a little less than his
benevolence. She was cynical, as was the fashion, and her moral life
shocked even that easy-going age. Also she was a philosopher, and
invited Diderot, chief of the French Cyclopædists, to dwell at her
court, much as Voltaire had dwelt at Frederick's. French literature was
still the literature of Europe, and both Frederick and Catharine openly
despised the tongue of their own lands.
It was among these three congenial rulers, of Russia, Prussia, and young
Joseph of Austria, that the scheme arose of dividing Poland among
themselves.[21] This has been termed "the crime of the century," but it
was in strict accordance with what the rest of Europe had attempted to
do to Austria and then to Prussia. Only, the first two victims had
proved unexpectedly capable of resistance, the third was more shrewdly
selected. Kindly benevolent despotism had also a voice in the matter,
for Poland was wretchedly misgoverned, a source of constant danger to
herself and to her neighbors. It was really a kindness, as those
neighbors explained, to relieve her of half her territories. So well
were their successors of the next generation pleased with the results,
that they took each another slice, and then, fully convinced of the
ancestral wisdom and good-will, divided what was left.
SHADOW OF COMING CHANGES
The new cynicism and philosophy which was thus spreading even among
monarchs, was soon destined to have most explosive results. It found
expression first in a further revolt against the dominion of the Roman
Church. Most of the sovereigns joined in a determined attack against the
Jesuits, the enthusiastic and devoted priests who had become the
mainstay of the papal power. After a long resistance, the Jesuits
succumbed; their order was abolished by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.
The next startling symptom of the changing times was the rapid literary
development of Germany. Its young men had been left free to think and
talk. Frederick half contemptuously declared that his people might
believe what nonsense they pleased so long as they remained orderly. The
poet Lessing by his books roused the ancient spirit of liberty, long
dormant in the German mind. Goethe and Schiller became the foremost of a
crowd of younger men whose revolt at first took the form of an
extravagant devotion to romance as opposed to the dull workaday world
about them.[22] Pestalozzi, a Swiss, conceived the idea of reforming the
world through its children, encouraging the little ones by constant,
loving example to develop all the strength and goodness that was in
them.[23]
Yet the first open defiance given to despotism by the fast-growing
spirit of freedom came not from Europe but from America; was a revolt
not against the lazy tyranny in France or the kindly tyranny of Eastern
Europe, but against the constitutional government of England. When the
French minister signed the treaty surrendering to England all his
country's possessions in America he justified himself with a well-turned
phrase, "I give her all, on purpose to destroy her."
The words seemed prophetic, England's loss came through her gain. The
Indians, devoted to the French, refused to submit peacefully to the
change of rule. Pontiac, often regarded as the ablest statesman of his
fading race, gathered them into a widespread confederacy, and for years
held the English at bay in the region of the Great Lakes.[24] The
expenses involved both upon England and upon her American colonists by
this strife and by the French war itself were a constant source of
friction. England insisted that she had spent her substance in defence
of the colonists, and should be repaid by them. They on the other hand
asserted that she had fought for her own glory, and had been well repaid
by her vast increases of territory both in India and America; that they
had become impoverished, while she had now the richest trade in the
world, and stood upon the top-most pinnacle of national grandeur with
wealth pouring in to her from every quarter of the globe.
Neither side being able to convince the other by abstract argument,
England exerted her authority and passed the "Stamp Act," laying new
taxes on the colonists.[25] They responded with protests, argumentative,
eloquent, fiery, and defiant. They refused to trade with Great Britain,
and became self-supporting. Thus the obnoxious laws, instead of bringing
money to the mother country, caused her heavy losses. English merchants
joined the Americans in petitioning for the repeal of the offensive acts
of Parliament; and soon every tax was withdrawn except a tiny one on
tea, so small that the money involved was trifling. But it was not the
money, it was the principle involved, which had aroused the Americans;
and their resistance continued as vigorous as against the previous
really burdensome taxation. The tea which King George commanded should
be sent forcibly to the colonists, they refused to receive. In Boston it
was dumped into the harbor.[26]
The English Parliament drew back in amazement; its members found
themselves dealing, as one of them put it, with a nation of lawyers.
They were wrong; they had encountered a force far more potent, a nation
of freemen who had been permitted for a century and a half to rule
themselves, who had reached the fullest measure of self-reliance and
self-assertion. America had become earliest ripe for the Age of
Revolution toward which the European middle classes, more lately left to
themselves, were more slowly, but not less surely, developing.
[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XIV]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Defeat of the Young Pretender at Culloden_, page 117.
[2] See _Cotton Manufacture Developed_, page 341.
[3] See _John Law Promotes the Mississippi Scheme_, page 1.
[4] See _Bursting of the South Sea Bubble_, page 22.
[5] See _Voltaire Directs European Thought from Geneva_, page 144.
[6] See _Bach Lays the Foundation of Modern Music_, page 31.
[7] See _First Modern Novel_, page 100.
[8] See _Watt Improves the Steam-engine_, page 302.
[9] See _Benjamin Franklin Experiments with Electricity_, page 130.
[10] See _Settlement of Georgia_, page 44.
[11] See _Rise of Methodism: Preaching of the Wesleys and of
Whitefield_, page 57.
[12] See _Prince Eugene Vanquishes the Turks: Siege and Battle of
Belgrad_, page 16.
[13] See _Conquests of Nadir Shah: Capture of Delhi_, page 72.
[14] _See Frederick the Great Seizes Silesia: Maria Theresa Appeals to
the Hungarians_, page 108.
[15] See _Seven Years' War: Battle of Torgau_, page 204.
[16] _See Clive Establishes British Supremacy in India: The Black Hole
of Calcutta: Battle of Plassey_, page 185.
[17] See _Braddock's Defeat_, page 163.
[18] See _Exile of the Acadian Neutrals_, page 181.
[19] See _Conquest of Canada: Victory of Wolfe at Quebec_, page 229.
[20] See _Usurpation of Catharine II in Russia_, page 250.
[21] See _First Partition of Poland_, page 313.
[22] See _Intellectual Revolt of Germany_, page 347.
[23] See _Pestalozzi's Method of Education_, page 364.
[24] See _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, page 267.
[25] See _American Colonies Oppose the Stamp Act_, page 289.
[26] See _Boston Tea Party_, page 333.
JOHN LAW PROMOTES THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME
A.D. 1716
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
Known under the various titles of the "Mississippi Scheme," the
"Mississippi Bubble," and the "System," the financial enterprise
originated by John Law, under authority of the French government,
proved to be the most disastrous experiment of the kind ever made by
a civilized state.
Louis XIV ended his long reign in 1715, leaving his throne to his
great-grandson, a child of five years, Louis XV. The impoverished
country was in the hands of a regent, Philippe, Duke of Orléans,
whose financial undertakings were all unfortunate. John Law, the son
of a Scotch banker, was an adventurer and a gambler who yet became
celebrated as a financier and commercial promoter. After killing an
antagonist in a duel in London, he escaped the gallows by fleeing to
the Continent, where he followed gaming and at the same time devised
financial schemes which he proposed to various governments for their
adoption. His favorite notion was that large issues of paper money
could be safely circulated with small security.
Law offered to relieve Orléans from his financial troubles, and the
Regent listened with favor to his proposals. In 1716 Law, with
others, organized what he called the General Bank. It was ably
managed, became popular, and by means of it Law successfully carried
out his paper-currency ideas. His notes were held at a premium over
those of the government, whose confidence was therefore won. Two
years later Law's institution was adopted by the state and became
the Royal Bank of France. The further undertakings of this
extraordinary "new light of finance," the blowing and bursting of
the great "bubble," are recorded by Thiers, the French statesman and
historian, himself eminent as his country's chief financier during
her wonderful recovery after the Franco-German War.
Law was always scheming to concentrate into one establishment his bank,
the administration of the public revenues, and the commercial
monopolies. He resolved, in order to attain this end, to organize,
separately, a commercial company, to which he would add, one after
another, different privileges in proportion to its success, and which
he would then incorporate with the General Bank. Constructing thus
separately each of the pieces of his vast machine, he proposed
ultimately to unite them and form the grand whole, the object of his
dreams and his ardent ambition.
An immense territory, discovered by a Frenchman, in the New World,
presented itself for the speculations of Law. The Chevalier de la Salle,
the famous traveller of the time, having penetrated into America by
Upper Canada, descended the river Illinois, arrived suddenly at a great
river half a league wide, and, abandoning himself to the current, was
borne into the Gulf of Mexico. This river was the Mississippi. The
Chevalier de la Salle took possession of the country he had passed
through for the King of France, and gave it the beautiful name of
Louisiana.
There was much said of the magnificence and fertility of this new
country, of the abundance of its products, of the richness of its mines,
which were reported to be much more extensive than those of Mexico or
Peru. Law, taking advantage of this current of opinion, projected a
company which should unite the commerce of Louisiana with the fur trade
of Canada. The Regent granted all he asked, by an edict given in August,
1717, fifteen months after the first establishment of the bank.
The new company received the title of the "West Indian Company." It was
to have the sovereignty of all Louisiana on the condition only of liege
homage to the King of France, and of a crown of gold of thirty marks at
the commencement of every new reign. It was to exercise all the rights
of sovereignty, such as levying troops, equipping vessels-of-war,
constructing forts, establishing courts, working mines, etc. The King
relinquished to it the vessels, forts, and munitions of war which
belonged to the Crozat Company,[27] and conceded, furthermore, the
exclusive right of the fur trade of Canada. The arms of this sovereign
company represented the effigy of an old river-god leaning upon a horn
of plenty.
Law revolved in his mind many other projects relating to his Western
company. He spoke, at first mysteriously, of the benefits which he was
preparing for it. Associating with a large number of noblemen, whom his
wit, his fortune, and the hope of considerable gains attracted around
him, he urged them strongly to obtain for themselves some shares, which
would soon rise rapidly in the market. He was himself soon obliged to
buy some above par. The par value being five hundred francs, two hundred
of them represented at par a sum of one hundred thousand francs. The
price for the day being three hundred francs, sixty thousand francs were
sufficient to buy two hundred shares. He contracted to pay one hundred
thousand francs for two hundred shares at a fixed future time; this was
to anticipate that they would gain at least two hundred francs each, and
that a profit of forty thousand francs could be realized on the whole.
He agreed, in order to make this sort of wager more certain, to pay the
difference of forty thousand francs in advance, and to lose the
difference if he did not realize a profit from the proposed transfer.
This was the first instance of a sale at an anticipated advance. This
kind of trade consisted in giving "earnest-money" called a premium,
which the purchaser lost if he failed to take the property. He who made
the bargain had the liberty of rescinding it if he would lose more by
adhering to it than by abandoning it. No advantage would accrue to Law
for the possible sacrifice of forty thousand francs, unless at the
designated time the shares had not been worth as much as sixty thousand
francs, or three hundred francs each; for having engaged to pay one
hundred thousand francs for what was worth only fifty thousand, for
instance, he would suffer less to lose his forty thousand francs than to
keep his engagement. But, evidently, if Law did wish by this method to
limit the possible loss, he hoped nevertheless not to make any loss at
all; and, on the contrary, he believed firmly that the two hundred
shares would be worth at least the hundred thousand francs, or five
hundred francs each, at the time fixed for the expiration of the
contract. This large premium attracted general attention, and people
were eager to purchase the Western shares. They rose sensibly during the
month of April, 1719, and went nearly to par. Law disclosed his
projects; the Regent kept his promise, and authorized him to unite the
great commercial companies of the East and West Indies.
The two companies of the East Indies and of China, chartered in 1664 and
1713, had conducted their affairs very badly: they had ceased to carry
on any commerce, and had underlet their privileges at a charge which was
very burdensome to the trade. The merchants who had bought it of them
did not dare to make use of their privileges, for fear that their
vessels would be seized by the creditors of the company. Navigation to
the East was entirely abandoned, and the necessity of reviving it had
become urgent. By a decree of May, 1719, Law caused to be accorded to
the West India Company the exclusive right of trading in all seas beyond
the Cape of Good Hope. From this time it had the sole right of traffic
with the islands of Madagascar, Bourbon, and France, the coast of Sofola
in Africa, the Red Sea, Persia, Mongolia, Siam, China, and Japan. The
commerce of Senegal, an acquisition of the company which still carried
it on, was added to the others, so that the company had the right of
French trade in America, Africa, and Asia. Its title, like its
functions, was enlarged; it was no longer called the "West India
Company," but the "_Indian_ Company." Its regulations remained the same
as before. It was authorized to issue another lot of shares, in order to
raise the necessary funds either to pay the debts of the companies which
it succeeded or for organizing the proper establishments. Fifty thousand
of these shares were issued at a par of five hundred francs, which made
a nominal capital of twenty-five millions. But the company demanded five
hundred fifty francs in cash for them, or a total of twenty-seven
millions two hundred fifty thousand francs, inasmuch as it esteemed its
privileges as very great and its popularity certain. It required fifty
francs to be paid in advance, and the remaining five hundred in twenty
equal monthly payments. In case the payments should not be fully made,
the fifty francs paid in advance were forfeited by the subscriber. It
was nothing but a bargain made at a premium with the public.
The prompt realization of the promises of Law, the importance and extent
of the last privileges granted to the company, the facilities accorded
to the subscribers, everything, induced a subscription to the new
shares. The movement became animated. One could, by the favorable terms
offered, by paying out five hundred fifty francs, obtain eleven shares
instead of one, and thus, with a little money, speculate to a
considerable amount. To this method of attracting speculators Law added
another; he procured a decision that no one should subscribe for the new
shares without exhibiting four times as many old ones. It was necessary,
therefore, to hasten to obtain them in order to fulfil the requisite
condition. In a short time they were carried up to par, and far above
that. From three hundred francs, at which they were at the start, they
rose to five hundred, five hundred fifty, six hundred, and seven hundred
fifty francs; that is, they gained 150 per cent. These second shares
were called the "daughters," to distinguish them from the first.
Law contemplated at last the completion of his project by uniting the
collection of the revenues to the other privileges of the Indian
Company, and redeeming the national debt. This was the greatest and most
difficult part of his plan.
The national debt was fifteen to sixteen hundred millions, partly in
contracts for perpetual annuities, partly in State notes which would
soon be due. The interest on the debt was eighty millions, or one-half
the revenue of the government. Some combination was necessary to meet
the state notes at their maturity, and to reduce the annual charges
which the public treasury could no longer sustain.
Law conceived the idea of substituting the company for the government,
and converting the whole national debt into shares in the Indian
Company. To accomplish this he wished the company to lend the treasury
the fifteen to sixteen hundred millions which would redeem the debt; and
that, to obtain this enormous sum, it should issue shares to that
amount. In this manner the fifteen or sixteen hundred millions furnished
to the government by the company, and paid out by the government to its
creditors, must return to the company by the sale of its shares. Let us
see the means which Law had devised to insure the success of his scheme.
The government would pay 3 per cent. interest for the sum loaned to it,
which would make forty-five or forty-eight millions a year. The treasury
would thus effect an annual saving of thirty-two or thirty-five millions
in the interest on the debt. In return, the collection of the revenue
must be transferred to the company, notwithstanding that it had been
actually granted to the brothers Paris. The collection would pay the
collectors a net profit of fifteen or sixteen millions. The company,
receiving 3 per cent. interest on the capital invested, and reaping from
another source a profit of fifteen or sixteen millions, would be in a
position to pay 4 per cent. on the sixteen hundred millions of the debt
converted into shares.
The profits from commerce and its future success might soon enable it to
increase this dividend. According to the prevailing rates of interest,
which had fallen to 3 per cent. since the establishment of the bank,
this was a sufficient remuneration on the shares. They had, besides, the
hope of increasing their capital. The shares having, in fact, doubled in
value during the opposition of the "Antisystem," they ought to increase
still more rapidly since they were relieved from this opposition. The
expectation that the fifteen or sixteen hundred millions of the debt
would be invested in the shares was well founded. There was even a
certainty of it; for this immense capital, forcibly expelled from its
investment in state securities, could find no other place for investment
than in the company.
This plan of Law's was vast and bold. Its success would liquidate the
state debt and diminish the annual charges on the treasury, reducing the
interest from eighty millions to forty-five or forty-eight millions. The
annual charges from which the treasury was to be relieved were to be
paid from the profits on the collection of the revenue and the
contingent profits of commerce. The whole operation was to pay the
creditors of the state 3 per cent. per annum, and the profits and
monopolies heretofore granted to farmers of the revenue and commercial
companies. This 3 per cent. interest, these profits, and these
monopolies, as we shall soon see, might easily amount to the sum of
eighty millions annually, which the creditors were formerly paid. Thus
far they were not defrauded by this forced conversion of securities; a
credit entirely new was substituted for one which was worn out; an
establishment had been created, which, combining the functions of a
commercial bank and the administration of the finances, must become the
most colossal financial power ever known.
The first subscription having been taken up in a few days, Law opened a
new one on September 28th, for the same amount and on exactly the same
conditions as the preceding.
The eagerness of subscribers was the same. The creditors passed whole
days at the offices of the treasury to obtain their receipts, and there
were some even who had their meals brought to them there, so that they
might not lose their turn in the ranks. The state notes were, of course,
much in demand, and had rapidly risen to par. They had even given rise
to a most reprehensible speculation. A confidential clerk of Law, the
Prussian Versinobre, having known in advance of the decree regarding the
payment, abused his knowledge of the secret, and caused to be bought by
brokers with whom he was associated a large amount of state notes at 50
or 60 per cent. below their nominal value, and employed them for the
subscriptions when they were received at par. When it is considered that
the subscriptions, already, were sold at a large advance, and that by
means of the state notes they were bought at about half price, it will
be understood what a profit this company of brokers must have realized.
Those who intended to subscribe had accomplished comparatively little by
obtaining receipts or state notes; it was still necessary to go to the
Hôtel de Nevers, where the subscriptions were received. The entrances
there were crowded to suffocation. The hall servants made considerable
sums by subscribing for those who could not get through the crowd to the
offices. Some adventurers, assuming the livery of Law, performed this
service, charging and obtaining a very large fee. The most humble
employees of the company became patrons who were very much courted. As
to the higher officers and Law himself, they received as much adulation
as if they were the actual dispensers of the favors of Fortune. The
approaches to Law's residence were encumbered with carriages. All that
was most brilliant among the nobility of France came to beg humbly for
the subscriptions, which were already much above the nominal price of
shares, and which were sure to rise much higher. By a clause creating
the company, the ownership of the shares entailed nothing derogatory to
rank. The nobility, therefore, could indulge in this speculation without
endangering its titles. It was as much in debt as the King, thanks to
its prodigality and the long wars of that century, and it sought to win,
at least, the amount of its debt by fortunate speculations. It
surrounded, it fawned upon Law, who, very anxious to gain partisans,
reserved very few shares for himself, but distributed them among his
friends of the court.