The Mississippi bubble: a memoir of John Law

Front matter

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DARLEY'S ILLUSTfATED EDITION

Chapter I

Law's birth, parentage and education — His personal appearance and qualities — ^His early career in London — Duel and its consequences — His travels and financial studies on the Continent — Difference between money and wealth — Banks and banking — Paper money — Law not guilty of the errors attributed to him — His system of a general bank — His attempt and failure to establish a territorial bank in Scotland, 13

CHAPTER n.

Law resumes his travels — His success at -the gaming-table — ^Proposes his system to various governments — State of the French finances — Measures of the Regent — Debasing the coin — Its effect — Law offers his plans — Objections raised to it — ^Establishment of Law's private bank — Its favorable reception by the people — Its benefit to trade — Its extension into the provinces — Astonishing success, 35

Chapter III

Law's scheme of a commercial company— The Mississippi company — Jealousy of, and opposition to, Law — He is sustained by the

CONTENTS.

Kegen(^-The brothers Paris — The anti-system— h^vi initiates a speculation in stocks — Companies of the East and West Indies united — Shares rise rapidly — The rue Quincampoix— Stockbrokers — Kun on the bank — Law triumphs over everything, 67

Chapter IV

The national debt — Law's project for redeeming it — Caution necessary in executing the project — The collection of the rerenuo granted to Law's company — Arrangements for the assumption of the national debt by the company — General eagerness to subscribe for the shares — The nobility pay court to Law — Rage for speculation begins — Stock jobbing operations of the brokers 81

Chapter V

Mistake in the detaUa of the execution of Law's project — New privileges granted to the company — Speculation attracts all classes and affects all kinds of business — Foreigners arrive — Tricks of the brokers — Fortunes made in a few hours — Actual value of the shares — Law idolized — ^Anecdotes — His conversion — Courted by foreign governments — Continued success of the bank — Excessive luxury of speculators — Income of the company, 99

Chapter VI

Extravagant prices of goods — First decline of shares — Drain of specie from the bank — Forced measures resorted to — Attempts to revive confidence by adding new functions to the company — Letter to a creditor — Panic increases — Odious measures — Licentiousness of the realizers — Bank notes might and should have been disconnected from the shares — Violent and criminal plan, ' "['lU

CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTER VII. The bank and the company united — Price of the shares fixed

Measures for regulating the exchange of shares— Frightful depreciation of bank notes — Debtors the only persons benefited — Father betrayed by his sou — Speculators dispersed by soldiers — Second "Letter to a Creditor" — Ingratitude of the Mississippians — Murder and robbery by a young nobleman — Firmness of the Begent, 148

CHAPTER Vin.

Circulation of gold prohibited — Reduction of the nominal value of shares and bank notes — Great clamor raised — ^Whole blame of the reduction falls on Law — Regent yields to the clamor — He retains Law in his fayor — Law repeals some of the most obnoxious regulations— Measures to abolish the System — DifiBculties in carrying them out, 159

Chapter IX

"Spoils of the Mississippians" — ^Further efforts to bring in the notes — ^Men suffocated in the crowd at the bank — Mob pursue Law — He seeks protection at the palace of the Regent — Bank closed — ^Tampering with the currency — Severities toward the Mississippians — ^Final abolition of the System — Law quits France — Confiscation of his property 179

Chapter X

Recapitulation — Comparison between this and other financial catastrophes — Reflections, 206

XU CONTENTS.

PAGE

Notes to Darien Expedition, 262

Enthusiasm of the Scotch, 264

Difficulties at the Start, 264

Opposition of the English, 255

Opposition of the Dutch, 256

Disastrous Eesult 25'7

Notes to South Sea Bubble 833