In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they
have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and
recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole
communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its
pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one
delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new
folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized,
from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military
glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple, and
neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood
and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity. At
an early age in the annals of Europe its population lost their wits about
the Sepulchre of Jesus, and crowded in frenzied multitudes to the Holy
Land: another age went mad for fear of the Devil, and offered up hundreds
of thousands of victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time,
the many became crazed on the subject of the Philosopher’s Stone, and
committed follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought
a venial offence in very many countries of Europe to destroy an enemy by
slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man
to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of gentle birth
and manners caught the contagion of murder, until poisoning, under their
auspices, became quite fashionable. Some delusions, though notorious to
all the world, have subsisted for ages, flourishing as widely among
civilized and polished nations as among the early barbarians with whom
they originated,—that of duelling, for instance, and the belief in
omens and divination of the future, which seem to defy the progress of
knowledge to eradicate entirely from the popular mind. Money, again, has
often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all
at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon
the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent
of these delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been
well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds,
while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

In the present state of civilization, society has often shown itself very
prone to run a career of folly from the last-mentioned cases. This
infatuation has seized upon whole nations in a most extraordinary manner.
France, with her Mississippi madness, set the first great example, and was
very soon imitated by England with her South Sea Bubble. At an earlier
period, Holland made herself still more ridiculous in the eyes of the
world, by the frenzy which came over her people for the love of Tulips.
Melancholy as all these delusions were in their ultimate results, their
history is most amusing. A more ludicrous and yet painful spectacle, than
that which Holland presented in the years 1635 and 1636, or France in 1719
and 1720, can hardly be imagined. Taking them in the order of their
importance, we shall commence our history with John Law and the famous
Mississippi scheme of the years above mentioned.

THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME

The personal character and career of one man are so intimately connected
with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the
Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the
life of its great author, John Law. Historians are divided in opinion as
to whether they should designate him a knave or a madman. Both epithets
were unsparingly applied to him in his lifetime, and while the unhappy
consequences of his projects were still deeply felt. Posterity, however,
has found reason to doubt the justice of the accusation, and to confess
that John Law was neither knave nor madman, but one more deceived than
deceiving; more sinned against than sinning. He was thoroughly acquainted
with the philosophy and true principles of credit. He understood the
monetary question better than any man of his day; and if his system fell
with a crash so tremendous, it was not so much his fault as that of the
people amongst whom he had erected it. He did not calculate upon the
avaricious frenzy of a whole nation; he did not see that confidence, like
mistrust, could be increased, almost ad infinitum, and that hope was as
extravagant as fear. How was he to foretell that the French people, like
the man in the fable, would kill, in their frantic eagerness, the fine
goose he had brought to lay them so many golden eggs? His fate was like
that which may be supposed to have overtaken the first adventurous boatman
who rowed from Erie to Ontario. Broad and smooth was the river on which he
embarked; rapid and pleasant was his progress; and who was to stay him in
his career? Alas for him! the cataract was nigh. He saw, when it was too
late, that the tide which wafted him so joyously along was a tide of
destruction; and when he endeavoured to retrace his way, he found that the
current was too strong for his weak efforts to stem, and that he drew
nearer every instant to the tremendous falls. Down he went over the sharp
rocks, and the waters with him. He was dashed to pieces with his bark, but
the waters, maddened and turned to foam by the rough descent, only boiled
and bubbled for a time, and then flowed on again as smoothly as ever. Just
so it was with Law and the French people. He was the boatman and they were
the waters.

John Law was born at Edinburgh in the year 1671. His father was the
younger son of an ancient family in Fife, and carried on the business of a
goldsmith and banker. He amassed considerable wealth in his trade,
sufficient to enable him to gratify the wish, so common among his
countrymen, of adding a territorial designation to his name. He purchased
with this view the estates of Lauriston and Randleston, on the Frith of
Forth on the borders of West and Mid Lothian, and was thenceforth known as
Law of Lauriston. The subject of our memoir, being the eldest son, was
received into his father’s counting-house at the age of fourteen, and for
three years laboured hard to acquire an insight into the principles of
banking, as then carried on in Scotland. He had always manifested great
love for the study of numbers, and his proficiency in the mathematics was
considered extraordinary in one of his tender years. At the age of
seventeen he was tall, strong, and well made; and his face, although
deeply scarred with the small-pox, was agreeable in its expression, and
full of intelligence. At this time he began to neglect his business, and
becoming vain of his person, indulged in considerable extravagance of
attire. He was a great favourite with the ladies, by whom he was called
Beau Law, while the other sex, despising his foppery, nicknamed him
Jessamy John. At the death of his father, which happened in 1688, he
withdrew entirely from the desk, which had become so irksome, and being
possessed of the revenues of the paternal estate of Lauriston, he
proceeded to London, to see the world.

He was now very young, very vain, good-looking, tolerably rich, and quite
uncontrolled. It is no wonder that, on his arrival in the capital, he
should launch out into extravagance. He soon became a regular frequenter
of the gaming-houses, and by pursuing a certain plan, based upon some
abstruse calculation of chances, he contrived to gain considerable sums.
All the gamblers envied him his luck, and many made it a point to watch
his play, and stake their money on the same chances. In affairs of
gallantry he was equally fortunate; ladies of the first rank smiled
graciously upon the handsome Scotchman—the young, the rich, the
witty, and the obliging. But all these successes only paved the way for
reverses. After he had been for nine years exposed to the dangerous
attractions of the gay life he was leading, he became an irrecoverable
gambler. As his love of play increased in violence, it diminished in
prudence. Great losses were only to be repaired by still greater ventures,
and one unhappy day he lost more than he could repay without mortgaging
his family estate. To that step he was driven at last. At the same time
his gallantry brought him into trouble. A love affair, or slight
flirtation, with a lady of the name of Villiers [Miss Elizabeth Villiers,
afterwards Countess of Orkney] exposed him to the resentment of a Mr.
Wilson, by whom he was challenged to fight a duel. Law accepted, and had
the ill fortune to shoot his antagonist dead upon the spot. He was
arrested the same day, and brought to trial for murder by the relatives of
Mr. Wilson. He was afterwards found guilty, and sentenced to death. The
sentence was commuted to a fine, upon the ground that the offence only
amounted to manslaughter. An appeal being lodged by a brother of the
deceased, Law was detained in the King’s Bench, whence, by some means or
other, which he never explained, he contrived to escape; and an action
being instituted against the sheriffs, he was advertised in the Gazette,
and a reward offered for his apprehension. He was described as “Captain
John Law, a Scotchman, aged twenty-six; a very tall, black, lean man; well
shaped, above six feet high, with large pockholes in his face; big nosed,
and speaking broad and loud.” As this was rather a caricature than a
description of him, it has been supposed that it was drawn up with a view
to favour his escape. He succeeded in reaching the Continent, where he
travelled for three years, and devoted much of his attention to the
monetary and banking affairs of the countries through which he passed. He
stayed a few months in Amsterdam, and speculated to some extent in the
funds. His mornings were devoted to the study of finance and the
principles of trade, and his evenings to the gaming-house. It is generally
believed that he returned to Edinburgh in the year 1700. It is certain
that he published in that city his “Proposals and Reasons for constituting
a Council of Trade.” This pamphlet did not excite much attention.

In a short time afterwards he published a project for establishing what he
called a Land-bank [The wits of the day called it a sand-bank, which would
wreck the vessel of the state.], the notes issued by which were never to
exceed the value of the entire lands of the state, upon ordinary interest,
or were to be equal in value to the land, with the right to enter into
possession at a certain time. The project excited a good deal of
discussion in the Scottish parliament, and a motion for the establishment
of such a bank was brought forward by a neutral party, called the
Squadrone, whom Law had interested in his favour. The Parliament
ultimately passed a resolution to the effect, that, to establish any kind
of paper credit, so as to force it to pass, was an improper expedient for
the nation.

Upon the failure of this project, and of his efforts to procure a pardon
for the murder of Mr. Wilson, Law withdrew to the Continent, and resumed
his old habits of gaming. For fourteen years he continued to roam about,
in Flanders, Holland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and France. He soon became
intimately acquainted with the extent of the trade and resources of each,
and daily more confirmed in his opinion that no country could prosper
without a paper currency. During the whole of this time he appears to have
chiefly supported himself by successful play. At every gambling-house of
note in the capitals of Europe, he was known and appreciated as one better
skilled in the intricacies of chance than any other man of the day. It is
stated in the “Biographie Universelle” that he was expelled, first from
Venice, and afterwards from Genoa, by the magistrates, who thought him a
visitor too dangerous for the youth of those cities. During his residence
in Paris he rendered himself obnoxious to D’Argenson, the
lieutenant-general of the police, by whom he was ordered to quit the
capital. This did not take place, however, before he had made the
acquaintance in the saloons, of the Duke de Vendome, the Prince de Conti,
and of the gay Duke of Orleans, the latter of whom was destined afterwards
to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of Orleans was
pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish adventurer, while
the latter was no less pleased with the wit and amiability of a prince who
promised to become his patron. They were often thrown into each other’s
society, and Law seized every opportunity to instil his financial
doctrines into the mind of one whose proximity to the throne pointed him
out as destined, at no very distant date, to play an important part in the
government.

Shortly before the death of Louis XIV, or, as some say, in 1708, Law
proposed a scheme of finance to Desmarets, the Comptroller. Louis is
reported to have inquired whether the projector were a Catholic, and, on
being answered in the negative, to have declined having anything to do
with him. [This anecdote, which is related in the correspondence of Madame
de Baviere, Duchess of Orleans, and mother of the Regent, is discredited
by Lord John Russell, in his “History of the principal States of Europe,
from the Peace of Utrecht;” for what reason he does not inform us. There
is no doubt that Law proposed his scheme to Desmarets, and that Louis
refused to hear of it. The reason given for the refusal is quite
consistent with the character of that bigoted and tyrannical monarch.]

It was after this repulse that he visited Italy. His mind being still
occupied with schemes of finance, he proposed to Victor Amadeus, Duke of
Savoy, to establish his land-bank in that country. The Duke replied that
his dominions were too circumscribed for the execution of so great a
project, and that he was by far too poor a potentate to be ruined. He
advised him, however, to try the King of France once more; for he was
sure, if he knew anything of the French character, that the people would
be delighted with a plan, not only so new, but so plausible.

Louis XIV died in 1715, and the heir to the throne being an infant only
seven years of age, the Duke of Orleans assumed the reins of government,
as Regent, during his minority. Law now found himself in a more favourable
position. The tide in his affairs had come, which, taken at the flood, was
to waft him on to fortune. The Regent was his friend, already acquainted
with his theory and pretensions, and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any
efforts to restore the wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth
by the extravagance of the long reign of Louis XIV.

Hardly was that monarch laid in his grave ere the popular hatred,
suppressed so long, burst forth against his memory. He who, during his
life, had been flattered with an excess of adulation, to which history
scarcely offers a parallel, was now cursed as a tyrant, a bigot, and a
plunderer. His statues were pelted and disfigured; his effigies torn down,
amid the execrations of the populace, and his name rendered synonymous
with selfishness and oppression. The glory of his arms was forgotten, and
nothing was remembered but his reverses, his extravagance, and his
cruelty.

The finances of the country were in a state of the utmost disorder. A
profuse and corrupt monarch, whose profuseness and corruption were
imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest to the lowest
grade, had brought France to the verge of ruin. The national debt amounted
to 3000 millions of livres, the revenue to 145 millions, and the
expenditure to 142 millions per annum; leaving only three millions to pay
the interest upon 3000 millions. The first care of the Regent was to
discover a remedy for an evil of such magnitude, and a council was early
summoned to take the matter into consideration. The Duke de St. Simon was
of opinion that nothing could save the country from revolution but a
remedy at once bold and dangerous. He advised the Regent to convoke the
States-General, and declare a national bankruptcy. The Duke de Noailles, a
man of accommodating principles, an accomplished courtier, and totally
averse from giving himself any trouble or annoyance that ingenuity could
escape from, opposed the project of St. Simon with all his influence. He
represented the expedient as alike dishonest and ruinous. The Regent was
of the same opinion, and this desperate remedy fell to the ground.

The measures ultimately adopted, though they promised fair, only
aggravated the evil. The first, and most dishonest measure, was of no
advantage to the state. A recoinage was ordered, by which the currency was
depreciated one-fifth; those who took a thousand pieces of gold or silver
to the mint received back an amount of coin of the same nominal value, but
only four-fifths of the weight of metal. By this contrivance the treasury
gained seventy-two millions of livres, and all the commercial operations
of the country were disordered. A trifling diminution of the taxes
silenced the clamours of the people, and for the slight present advantage
the great prospective evil was forgotten.

A chamber of justice was next instituted, to inquire into the
malversations of the loan-contractors and the farmers of the revenues. Tax
collectors are never very popular in any country, but those of France at
this period deserved all the odium with which they were loaded. As soon as
these farmers-general, with all their hosts of subordinate agents, called
maltotiers [From maltote, an oppressive tax.], were called to account for
their misdeeds, the most extravagant joy took possession of the nation.
The Chamber of Justice, instituted chiefly for this purpose, was endowed
with very extensive powers. It was composed of the presidents and councils
of the parliament, the judges of the Courts of Aid and of Requests, and
the officers of the Chamber of Account, under the general presidence of
the minister of finance. Informers were encouraged to give evidence
against the offenders by the promise of one-fifth part of the fines and
confiscations. A tenth of all concealed effects belonging to the guilty
was promised to such as should furnish the means of discovering them.

The promulgation of the edict constituting this court caused a degree of
consternation among those principally concerned which can only be
accounted for on the supposition that their peculation had been enormous.
But they met with no sympathy. The proceedings against them justified
their terror. The Bastile was soon unable to contain the prisoners that
were sent to it, and the gaols all over the country teemed with guilty or
suspected persons. An order was issued to all innkeepers and postmasters
to refuse horses to such as endeavoured to seek safety in flight; and all
persons were forbidden, under heavy fines, to harbour them or favour their
evasion. Some were condemned to the pillory, others to the gallies, and
the least guilty to fine and imprisonment. One only, Samuel Bernard, a
rich banker, and farmer-general of a province remote from the capital, was
sentenced to death. So great had been the illegal profits of this man,—looked
upon as the tyrant and oppressor of his district,—that he offered
six millions of livres, or 250,000 pounds sterling, to be allowed to
escape.

His bribe was refused, and he suffered the penalty of death. Others,
perhaps more guilty, were more fortunate. Confiscation, owing to the
concealment of their treasures by the delinquents, often produced less
money than a fine. The severity of the government relaxed, and fines,
under the denomination of taxes, were indiscriminately levied upon all
offenders. But so corrupt was every department of the administration, that
the country benefited but little by the sums which thus flowed into the
treasury. Courtiers, and courtiers’ wives and mistresses, came in for the
chief share of the spoils. One contractor had been taxed in proportion to
his wealth and guilt, at the sum of twelve millions of livres. The Count *
* *, a man of some weight in the government, called upon him, and offered
to procure a remission of the fine, if he would give him a hundred
thousand crowns. “Vous etes trop tard, mon ami,” replied the financier; “I
have already made a bargain with your wife for fifty thousand.” [This
anecdote is related by M. de la Hode, in his Life of Philippe of Orleans.
It would have looked more authentic if he had given the names of the
dishonest contractor and the still more dishonest minister. But M. de la
Hode’s book is liable to the same objection as most of the French memoirs
of that and of subsequent periods. It is sufficient with most of them that
an anecdote be ben trovato; the veto is but matter of secondary
consideration.]

About a hundred and eighty millions of livres were levied in this manner,
of which eighty were applied in payment of the debts contracted by the
government. The remainder found its way into the pockets of the courtiers.
Madame de Maintenon, writing on this subject, says, “We hear every day of
some new grant of the Regent; the people murmur very much at this mode of
employing the money taken from the peculators.” The people, who, after the
first burst of their resentment is over, generally express a sympathy for
the weak, were indignant that so much severity should be used to so little
purpose. They did not see the justice of robbing one set of rogues to
fatten another. In a few months all the more guilty had been brought to
punishment, and the chamber of justice looked for victims in humbler walks
of life. Charges of fraud and extortion were brought against tradesmen of
good character, in consequence of the great inducements held out to common
informers. They were compelled to lay open their affairs before this
tribunal in order to establish their innocence. The voice of complaint
resounded from every side, and at the expiration of a year the government
found it advisable to discontinue further proceedings. The chamber of
justice was suppressed, and a general amnesty granted to all against whom
no charges had yet been preferred.

In the midst of this financial confusion Law appeared upon the scene. No
man felt more deeply than the Regent the deplorable state of the country,
but no man could be more averse from putting his shoulders manfully to the
wheel. He disliked business; he signed official documents without proper
examination, and trusted to others what he should have undertaken himself.
The cares inseparable from his high office were burdensome to him; he saw
that something was necessary to be done, but he lacked the energy to do
it, and had not virtue enough to sacrifice his case and his pleasures in
the attempt. No wonder that, with this character, he listened favourably
to the mighty projects, so easy of execution, of the clever adventurer
whom he had formerly known, and whose talents he appreciated.

When Law presented himself at court, he was most cordially received. He
offered two memorials to the Regent, in which he set forth the evils that
had befallen France, owing to an insufficient currency, at different times
depreciated. He asserted that a metallic currency, unaided by a paper
money, was wholly inadequate to the wants of a commercial country, and
particularly cited the examples of Great Britain and Holland to show the
advantages of paper. He used many sound arguments on the subject of
credit, and proposed, as a means of restoring that of France, then at so
low an ebb among the nations, that he should be allowed to set up a bank,
which should have the management of the royal revenues, and issue notes,
both on that and on landed security. He further proposed that this bank
should be administered in the King’s name, but subject to the control of
commissioners, to be named by the States-General.

While these memorials were under consideration, Law translated into French
his essay on money and trade, and used every means to extend through the
nation his renown as a financier. He soon became talked of. The confidants
of the Regent spread abroad his praise, and every one expected great
things of Monsieur Lass. [The French pronounced his name in this manner to
avoid the ungallic sound, aw. After the failure of his scheme, the wags
said the nation was lasse de lui, and proposed that he should in future be
known by the name of Monsieur Helas!]

On the 5th of May, 1716, a royal edict was published, by which Law was
authorised, in conjunction with his brother, to establish a bank, under
the name of Law and Company, the notes of which should be received in
payment of the taxes. The capital was fixed at six millions of livres, in
twelve thousand shares of five hundred livres each, purchasable one-fourth
in specie and the remainder in billets d’etat. It was not thought
expedient to grant him the whole of the privileges prayed for in his
memorials until experience should have shown their safety and advantage.

Law was now on the high road to fortune. The study of thirty years was
brought to guide him in the management of his bank. He made all his notes
payable at sight, and in the coin current at the time they were issued.
This last was a master-stroke of policy, and immediately rendered his
notes more valuable than the precious metals. The latter were constantly
liable to depreciation by the unwise tampering of the government. A
thousand livres of silver might be worth their nominal value one day and
be reduced one-sixth the next, but a note of Law’s bank retained its
original value. He publicly declared at the same time that a banker
deserved death if he made issues without having sufficient security to
answer all demands. The consequence was, that his notes advanced rapidly
in public estimation, and were received at one per cent. more than specie.
It was not long before the trade of the country felt the benefit.
Languishing commerce began to lift up her head; the taxes were paid with
greater regularity and less murmuring, and a degree of confidence was
established that could not fail, if it continued, to become still more
advantageous. In the course of a year Law’s notes rose to fifteen per
cent. premium, while the billets d’etat, or notes issued by the
government, as security for the debts contracted by the extravagant Louis
XIV, were at a discount of no less than seventy-eight and a half per cent.
The comparison was too great in favour of Law not to attract the attention
of the whole kingdom, and his credit extended itself day by day. Branches
of his bank were almost simultaneously established at Lyons, Rochelle,
Tours, Amiens, and Orleans.

The Regent appears to have been utterly astonished at his success, and
gradually to have conceived the idea, that paper, which could so aid a
metallic currency, could entirely supersede it. Upon this fundamental
error he afterwards acted. In the mean time, Law commenced the famous
project which has handed his name down to posterity. He proposed to the
Regent, who could refuse him nothing, to establish a company, that should
have the exclusive privilege of trading to the great river Mississippi and
the province of Louisiana, on its western bank. The country was supposed
to abound in the precious metals, and the company, supported by the
profits of their exclusive commerce, were to be the sole farmers of the
taxes, and sole coiners of money. Letters patent were issued,
incorporating the company, in August 1717. The capital was divided into
two hundred thousand shares of five hundred livres each, the whole of
which might be paid in billets d’etat, at their nominal value, although
worth no more than 160 livres in the market.

It was now that the frenzy of speculating began to seize upon the nation.
Law’s bank had effected so much good, that any promises for the future
which he thought proper to make were readily believed. The Regent every
day conferred new privileges upon the fortunate projector. The bank
obtained the monopoly of the sale of tobacco; the sole right of refinage
of gold and silver, and was finally erected into the Royal Bank of France.
Amid the intoxication of success, both Law and the Regent forgot the maxim
so loudly proclaimed by the former, that a banker deserved death who made
issues of paper without the necessary funds to provide for them. As soon
as the bank, from a private, became a public institution, the Regent
caused a fabrication of notes to the amount of one thousand millions of
livres. This was the first departure from sound principles, and one for
which Law is not justly blameable. While the affairs of the bank were
under his control, the issues had never exceeded sixty millions. Whether
Law opposed the inordinate increase is not known, but as it took place as
soon as the bank was made a royal establishment, it is but fair to lay the
blame of the change of system upon the Regent.

Law found that he lived under a despotic government, but he was not yet
aware of the pernicious influence which such a government could exercise
upon so delicate a framework as that of credit. He discovered it
afterwards to his cost, but in the mean time suffered himself to be
impelled by the Regent into courses which his own reason must have
disapproved. With a weakness most culpable, he lent his aid in inundating
the country with paper money, which, based upon no solid foundation, was
sure to fall, sooner or later. The extraordinary present fortune dazzled
his eyes, and prevented him from seeing the evil day that would burst over
his head, when once, from any cause or other, the alarm was sounded. The
Parliament were from the first jealous of his influence as a foreigner,
and had, besides, their misgivings as to the safety of his projects. As
his influence extended, their animosity increased. D’Aguesseau, the
Chancellor, was unceremoniously dismissed by the Regent for his opposition
to the vast increase of paper money, and the constant depreciation of the
gold and silver coin of the realm. This only served to augment the enmity
of the Parliament, and when D’Argenson, a man devoted to the interests of
the Regent, was appointed to the vacant chancellorship, and made at the
same time minister of finance, they became more violent than ever. The
first measure of the new minister caused a further depreciation of the
coin. In order to extinguish the billets d’etat, it was ordered that
persons bringing to the mint four thousand livres in specie and one
thousand livres in billets d’etat, should receive back coin to the amount
of five thousand livres. D’Argenson plumed himself mightily upon thus
creating five thousand new and smaller livres out of the four thousand old
and larger ones, being too ignorant of the true principles of trade and
credit to be aware of the immense injury he was inflicting upon both.

The Parliament saw at once the impolicy and danger of such a system, and
made repeated remonstrances to the Regent. The latter refused to entertain
their petitions, when the Parliament, by a bold, and very unusual stretch
of authority, commanded that no money should be received in payment but
that of the old standard. The Regent summoned a lit de justice, and
annulled the decree. The Parliament resisted, and issued another. Again
the Regent exercised his privilege, and annulled it, till the Parliament,
stung to fiercer opposition, passed another decree, dated August 12th,
1718, by which they forbade the bank of Law to have any concern, either
direct or indirect, in the administration of the revenue; and prohibited
all foreigners, under heavy penalties, from interfering, either in their
own names, or in that of others, in the management of the finances of the
state. The Parliament considered Law to be the author of all the evil, and
some of the counsellors, in the virulence of their enmity, proposed that
he should be brought to trial, and, if found guilty, be hung at the gates
of the Palais de Justice.

Law, in great alarm, fled to the Palais Royal, and threw himself on the
protection of the Regent, praying that measures might be taken to reduce
the Parliament to obedience. The Regent had nothing so much at heart, both
on that account and because of the disputes that had arisen relative to
the legitimation of the Duke of Maine and the Count of Thoulouse, the sons
of the late King. The Parliament was ultimately overawed by the arrest of
their president and two of the counsellors, who were sent to distant
prisons.

Thus the first cloud upon Law’s prospects blew over: freed from
apprehension of personal danger, he devoted his attention to his famous
Mississippi project, the shares of which were rapidly rising, in spite of
the Parliament. At the commencement of the year 1719 an edict was
published, granting to the Mississippi Company the exclusive privilege of
trading to the East Indies, China, and the South Seas, and to all the
possessions of the French East India Company, established by Colbert. The
Company, in consequence of this great increase of their business, assumed,
as more appropriate, the title of Company of the Indies, and created fifty
thousand new shares. The prospects now held out by Law were most
magnificent. He promised a yearly dividend of two hundred livres upon each
share of five hundred, which, as the shares were paid for in billets
d’etat, at their nominal value, but worth only 100 livres, was at the rate
of about 120 per cent. profit.

The public enthusiasm, which had been so long rising, could not resist a
vision so splendid. At least three hundred thousand applications were made
for the fifty thousand new shares, and Law’s house in the Rue de
Quincampoix was beset from morning to night by the eager applicants. As it
was impossible to satisfy them all, it was several weeks before a list of
the fortunate new stockholders could be made out, during which time the
public impatience rose to a pitch of frenzy. Dukes, marquises, counts,
with their duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, waited in the streets
for hours every day before Mr. Law’s door to know the result. At last, to
avoid the jostling of the plebeian crowd, which, to the number of
thousands, filled the whole thoroughfare, they took apartments in the
adjoining houses, that they might be continually near the temple whence
the new Plutus was diffusing wealth. Every day the value of the old shares
increased, and the fresh applications, induced by the golden dreams of the
whole nation, became so numerous that it was deemed advisable to create no
less than three hundred thousand new shares, at five thousand livres each,
in order that the Regent might take advantage of the popular enthusiasm to
pay off the national debt. For this purpose, the sum of fifteen hundred
millions of livres was necessary. Such was the eagerness of the nation,
that thrice the sum would have been subscribed if the government had
authorised it.

Law was now at the zenith of his prosperity, and the people were rapidly
approaching the zenith of their infatuation. The highest and the lowest
classes were alike filled with a vision of boundless wealth. There was not
a person of note among the aristocracy, with the exception of the Duke of
St. Simon and Marshal Villars, who was not engaged in buying or selling
stock. People of every age and sex, and condition in life, speculated in
the rise and fall of the Mississippi bonds. The Rue de Quincampoix was the
grand resort of the jobbers, and it being a narrow, inconvenient street,
accidents continually occurred in it, from the tremendous pressure of the
crowd. Houses in it, worth, in ordinary times, a thousand livres of yearly
rent, yielded as much as twelve or sixteen thousand. A cobbler, who had a
stall in it, gained about two hundred livres a day by letting it out, and
furnishing writing materials to brokers and their clients. The story goes,
that a hump-backed man who stood in the street gained considerable sums by
lending his hump as a writing-desk to the eager speculators! The great
concourse of persons who assembled to do business brought a still greater
concourse of spectators. These again drew all the thieves and immoral
characters of Paris to the spot, and constant riots and disturbances took
place. At nightfall, it was often found necessary to send a troop of
soldiers to clear the street.

Law, finding the inconvenience of his residence, removed to the Place
Vendome, whither the crowd of agioteurs followed him. That spacious square
soon became as thronged as the Rue de Quincampoix: from morning to night
it presented the appearance of a fair. Booths and tents were erected for
the transaction of business and the sale of refreshments, and gamblers
with their roulette tables stationed themselves in the very middle of the
place, and reaped a golden, or rather a paper, harvest from the throng.
The Boulevards and public gardens were forsaken; parties of pleasure took
their walks in preference in the Place Vendome, which became the
fashionable lounge of the idle, as well as the general rendezvous of the
busy. The noise was so great all day, that the Chancellor, whose court was
situated in the square, complained to the Regent and the municipality,
that he could not hear the advocates. Law, when applied to, expressed his
willingness to aid in the removal of the nuisance, and for this purpose
entered into a treaty with the Prince de Carignan for the Hotel de
Soissons, which had a garden of several acres in the rear. A bargain was
concluded, by which Law became the purchaser of the hotel, at an enormous
price, the Prince reserving to himself the magnificent gardens as a new
source of profit. They contained some fine statues and several fountains,
and were altogether laid out with much taste. As soon as Law was installed
in his new abode, an edict was published, forbidding all persons to buy or
sell stock anywhere but in the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons. In the
midst among the trees, about five hundred small tents and pavilions were
erected, for the convenience of the stock-jobbers. Their various colours,
the gay ribands and banners which floated from them, the busy crowds which
passed continually in and out—the incessant hum of voices, the
noise, the music, and the strange mixture of business and pleasure on the
countenances of the throng, all combined to give the place an air of
enchantment that quite enraptured the Parisians. The Prince de Carignan
made enormous profits while the delusion lasted. Each tent was let at the
rate of five hundred livres a month; and, as there were at least five
hundred of them, his monthly revenue from this source alone must have
amounted to 250,000 livres, or upwards of 10,000 pounds sterling.

The honest old soldier, Marshal Villars, was so vexed to see the folly
which had smitten his countrymen, that he never could speak with temper on
the subject. Passing one day through the Place Vendome in his carriage,
the choleric gentleman was so annoyed at the infatuation of the people,
that he abruptly ordered his coachman to stop, and, putting his head out
of the carriage window, harangued them for full half an hour on their
“disgusting avarice.” This was not a very wise proceeding on his part.
Hisses and shouts of laughter resounded from every side, and jokes without
number were aimed at him. There being at last strong symptoms that
something more tangible was flying through the air in the direction of his
head, Marshal was glad to drive on. He never again repeated the
experiment.

Two sober, quiet, and philosophic men of letters, M. de la Motte and the
Abbe Terrason, congratulated each other, that they, at least, were free
from this strange infatuation. A few days afterwards, as the worthy Abbe
was coming out of the Hotel de Soissons, whither he had gone to buy shares
in the Mississippi, whom should he see but his friend La Motte entering
for the same purpose. “Ha!” said the Abbe, smiling, “is that you?” “Yes,”
said La Motte, pushing past him as fast as he was able; “and can that be
you?” The next time the two scholars met, they talked of philosophy, of
science, and of religion, but neither had courage for a long time to
breathe one syllable about the Mississippi. At last, when it was
mentioned, they agreed that a man ought never to swear against his doing
any one thing, and that there was no sort of extravagance of which even a
wise man was not capable.

During this time, Law, the new Plutus, had become all at once the most
important personage of the state. The ante-chambers of the Regent were
forsaken by the courtiers. Peers, judges, and bishops thronged to the
Hotel de Soissons; officers of the army and navy, ladies of title and
fashion, and every one to whom hereditary rank or public employ gave a
claim to precedence, were to be found waiting in his ante-chambers to beg
for a portion of his India stock. Law was so pestered that he was unable
to see one-tenth part of the applicants, and every manoeuvre that
ingenuity could suggest was employed to gain access to him. Peers, whose
dignity would have been outraged if the Regent had made them wait half an
hour for an interview, were content to wait six hours for the chance of
seeing Monsieur Law. Enormous fees were paid to his servants, if they
would merely announce their names. Ladies of rank employed the
blandishments of their smiles for the same object; but many of them came
day after day for a fortnight before they could obtain an audience. When
Law accepted an invitation, he was sometimes so surrounded by ladies, all
asking to have their names put down in his lists as shareholders in the
new stock, that, in spite of his well-known and habitual gallantry, he was
obliged to tear himself away par force. The most ludicrous stratagems were
employed to have an opportunity of speaking to him. One lady, who had
striven in vain during several days, gave up in despair all attempts to
see him at his own house, but ordered her coachman to keep a strict watch
whenever she was out in her carriage, and if he saw Mr. Law coming, to
drive against a post, and upset her. The coachman promised obedience, and
for three days the lady was driven incessantly through the town, praying
inwardly for the opportunity to be overturned. At last she espied Mr. Law,
and, pulling the string, called out to the coachman, “Upset us now! for
God’s sake, upset us now!” The coachman drove against a post, the lady
screamed, the coach was overturned, and Law, who had seen the accident,
hastened to the spot to render assistance. The cunning dame was led into
the Hotel de Soissons, where she soon thought it advisable to recover from
her fright, and, after apologizing to Mr. Law, confessed her stratagem.
Law smiled, and entered the lady in his books as the purchaser of a
quantity of India stock. Another story is told of a Madame de Boucha, who,
knowing that Mr. Law was at dinner at a certain house, proceeded thither
in her carriage, and gave the alarm of fire. The company started from
table, and Law among the rest; but, seeing one lady making all haste into
the house towards him, while everybody else was scampering away, he
suspected the trick, and ran off in another direction.

Many other anecdotes are related, which even, though they may be a little
exaggerated, are nevertheless worth preserving, as showing the spirit of
that singular period. [The curious reader may find an anecdote of the
eagerness of the French ladies to retain Law in their company, which will
make him blush or smile according as he happens to be very modest or the
reverse. It is related in the Letters of Madame Charlotte Elizabeth de
Baviere, Duchess of Orleans, vol. ii. p. 274.] The Regent was one day
mentioning, in the presence of D’Argenson, the Abbe Dubois, and some other
persons, that he was desirous of deputing some lady, of the rank at least
of a Duchess, to attend upon his daughter at Modena; “but,” added he, “I
do not exactly know where to find one.” “No!” replied one, in affected
surprise; “I can tell you where to find every Duchess in France:—you
have only to go to Mr. Law’s; you will see them every one in his
ante-chamber.”

M. de Chirac, a celebrated physician, had bought stock at an unlucky
period, and was very anxious to sell out. Stock, however continued to fall
for two or three days, much to his alarm. His mind was filled with the
subject, when he was suddenly called upon to attend a lady, who imagined
herself unwell. He arrived, was shown up stairs, and felt the lady’s
pulse. “It falls! it falls! good God! it falls continually!” said he,
musingly, while the lady looked up in his face, all anxiety for his
opinion. “Oh! M. de Chirac,” said she, starting to her feet, and ringing
the bell for assistance; “I am dying! I am dying! it falls! it falls! it
falls!” “What falls?” inquired the doctor, in amazement. “My pulse! my
pulse!” said the lady; “I must be dying.” “Calm your apprehensions, my
dear Madam,” said M. de Chirac; “I was speaking of the stocks. The truth
is, I have been a great loser, and my mind is so disturbed, I hardly know
what I have been saying.”

The price of shares sometimes rose ten or twenty per cent. in the course
of a few hours, and many persons in the humbler walks of life, who had
risen poor in the morning, went to bed in affluence. An extensive holder
of stock, being taken ill, sent his servant to sell two hundred and fifty
shares, at eight thousand livres each, the price at which they were then
quoted. The servant went, and, on his arrival in the Jardin de Soissons,
found that in the interval the price had risen to ten thousand livres. The
difference of two thousand livres on the two hundred and fifty shares,
amounting to 500,000 livres, or 20,000 pounds sterling, he very coolly
transferred to his own use, and, giving the remainder to his master, set
out the same evening for another country. Law’s coachman in a very short
time made money enough to set up a carriage of his own, and requested
permission to leave his service. Law, who esteemed the man, begged of him
as a favour, that he would endeavour, before he went, to find a substitute
as good as himself. The coachman consented, and in the evening brought two
of his former comrades, telling Mr. Law to choose between them, and he
would take the other. Cookmaids and footmen were now and then as lucky,
and, in the full-blown pride of their easily-acquired wealth, made the
most ridiculous mistakes. Preserving the language and manners of their
old, with the finery of their new station, they afforded continual
subjects for the pity of the sensible, the contempt of the sober, and the
laughter of everybody. But the folly and meanness of the higher ranks of
society were still more disgusting. One instance alone, related by the
Duke de St. Simon, will show the unworthy avarice which infected the whole
of society. A man of the name of Andre, without character or education,
had, by a series of well-timed speculations in Mississippi bonds, gained
enormous wealth, in an incredibly short space of time. As St. Simon
expresses it, “he had amassed mountains of gold.” As he became rich, he
grew ashamed of the lowness of his birth, and anxious above all things to
be allied to nobility. He had a daughter, an infant only three years of
age, and he opened a negotiation with the aristocratic and needy family of
D’Oyse, that this child should, upon certain conditions, marry a member of
that house. The Marquis d’Oyse, to his shame, consented, and promised to
marry her himself on her attaining the age of twelve, if the father would
pay him down the sum of a hundred thousand crowns, and twenty thousand
livres every year, until the celebration of the marriage. The Marquis was
himself in his thirty-third year. This scandalous bargain was duly signed
and sealed, the stockjobber furthermore agreeing to settle upon his
daughter, on the marriage-day, a fortune of several millions. The Duke of
Brancas, the head of the family, was present throughout the negotiation,
and shared in all the profits. St. Simon, who treats the matter with the
levity becoming what he thought so good a joke, adds, “that people did not
spare their animadversions on this beautiful marriage,” and further
informs us, “that the project fell to the ground some months afterwards by
the overthrow of Law, and the ruin of the ambitious Monsieur Andre.” It
would appear, however, that the noble family never had the honesty to
return the hundred thousand crowns.

Amid events like these, which, humiliating though they be, partake largely
of the ludicrous, others occurred of a more serious nature. Robberies in
the streets were of daily occurrence, in consequence of the immense sums,
in paper, which people carried about with them. Assassinations were also
frequent. One case in particular fixed the attention of the whole of
France, not only on account of the enormity of the offence, but of the
rank and high connexions of the criminal.

The Count d’Horn, a younger brother of the Prince d’Horn, and related to
the noble families of D’Aremberg, De Ligne, and De Montmorency, was a
young man of dissipated character, extravagant to a degree, and
unprincipled as he was extravagant. In connexion with two other young men
as reckless as himself, named Mille, a Piedmontese captain, and one
Destampes, or Lestang, a Fleming, he formed a design to rob a very rich
broker, who was known, unfortunately for himself, to carry great sums
about his person. The Count pretended a desire to purchase of him a number
of shares in the Company of the Indies, and for that purpose appointed to
meet him in a cabaret, or low public-house, in the neighbourhood of the
Place Vendome. The unsuspecting broker was punctual to his appointment; so
were the Count d’Horn and his two associates, whom he introduced as his
particular friends. After a few moments’ conversation, the Count d’Horn
suddenly sprang upon his victim, and stabbed him three times in the breast
with a poniard. The man fell heavily to the ground, and, while the Count
was employed in rifling his portfolio of bonds in the Mississippi and
Indian schemes to the amount of one hundred thousand crowns, Mille, the
Piedmontese, stabbed the unfortunate broker again and again, to make sure
of his death. But the broker did not fall without a struggle, and his
cries brought the people of the cabaret to his assistance. Lestang, the
other assassin, who had been set to keep watch at a staircase, sprang from
a window and escaped; but Mille and the Count d’Horn were seized in the
very act.

This crime, committed in open day, and in so public a place as a cabaret,
filled Paris with consternation. The trial of the assassins commenced on
the following day, and the evidence being so clear, they were both found
guilty and condemned to be broken alive on the wheel. The noble relatives
of the Count d’Horn absolutely blocked up the ante-chambers of the Regent,
praying for mercy on the misguided youth, and alleging that he was insane.
The Regent avoided them as long as possible, being determined that, in a
case so atrocious, justice should take its course; but the importunity of
these influential suitors was not to be overcome so silently, and they at
last forced themselves into the presence of the Regent, and prayed him to
save their house the shame of a public execution. They hinted that the
Princes d’Horn were allied to the illustrious family of Orleans, and added
that the Regent himself would be disgraced if a kinsman of his should die
by the hands of a common executioner. The Regent, to his credit, was proof
against all their solicitations, and replied to their last argument in the
words of Corneille,—

adding, that whatever shame there might be in the punishment he would very
willingly share with the other relatives. Day after day they renewed their
entreaties, but always with the same result. At last they thought that if
they could interest the Duke de St. Simon in their layout, a man for whom
the Regent felt sincere esteem, they might succeed in their object. The
Duke, a thorough aristocrat, was as shocked as they were, that a noble
assassin should die by the same death as a plebeian felon, and represented
to the Regent the impolicy of making enemies of so numerous, wealthy, and
powerful a family. He urged, too, that in Germany, where the family of
D’Aremberg had large possessions, it was the law, that no relative of a
person broken on the wheel could succeed to any public office or employ
until a whole generation had passed away. For this reason he thought the
punishment of the guilty Count might be transmuted into beheading, which
was considered all over Europe as much less infamous. The Regent was moved
by this argument, and was about to consent, when Law, who felt peculiarly
interested in the fate of the murdered man, confirmed him in his former
resolution, to let the law take its course.

The relatives of D’Horn were now reduced to the last extremity. The Prince
de Robec Montmorency, despairing of other methods, found means to
penetrate into the dungeon of the criminal, and offering him a cup of
poison, implored him to save them from disgrace. The Count d’Horn turned
away his head, and refused to take it. Montmorency pressed him once more,
and losing all patience at his continued refusal, turned on his heel, and
exclaiming, “Die, then, as thou wilt, mean-spirited wretch! thou art fit
only to perish by the hands of the hangman!” left him to his fate.

D’Horn himself petitioned the Regent that he might be beheaded, but Law,
who exercised more influence over his mind than any other person, with the
exception of the notorious Abbe Dubois, his tutor, insisted that he could
not in justice succumb to the self-interested views of the D’Horns. The
Regent had from the first been of the same opinion, and within six days
after the commission of their crime, D’Horn and Mille were broken on the
wheel in the Place de Greve. The other assassin, Lestang, was never
apprehended.

This prompt and severe justice was highly pleasing to the populace of
Paris; even M. de Quincampoix, as they called Law, came in for a share of
their approbation for having induced the Regent to show no favour to a
patrician. But the number of robberies and assassinations did not
diminish. No sympathy was shown for rich jobbers when they were plundered:
the general laxity of public morals, conspicuous enough before, was
rendered still more so by its rapid pervasion of the middle classes, who
had hitherto remained comparatively pure, between the open vices of the
class above and the hidden crimes of the class below them. The pernicious
love of gambling diffused itself through society, and bore all public, and
nearly all private, virtue before it.

For a time, while confidence lasted, an impetus was given to trade, which
could not fail to be beneficial. In Paris, especially, the good results
were felt. Strangers flocked into the capital from every part, bent, not
only upon making money, but on spending it. The Duchess of Orleans, mother
of the Regent, computes the increase of the population during this time,
from the great influx of strangers from all parts of the world, at 305,000
souls. The housekeepers were obliged to make up beds in garrets, kitchens,
and even stables, for the accommodation of lodgers; and the town was so
full of carriages and vehicles of every description, that they were
obliged in the principal streets to drive at a foot-pace for fear of
accidents. The looms of the country worked with unusual activity, to
supply rich laces, silks, broad-cloth, and velvets, which being paid for
in abundant paper, increased in price four-fold. Provisions shared the
general advance; bread, meat, and vegetables were sold at prices greater
than had ever before been known; while the wages of labour rose in exactly
the same proportion. The artisan, who formerly gained fifteen sous per
diem, now gained sixty. New houses were built in every direction; an
illusory prosperity shone over the land, and so dazzled the eyes of the
whole nation that none could see the dark cloud on the horizon, announcing
the storm that was too rapidly approaching.

Law himself, the magician whose wand had wrought so surprising a change,
shared, of course, in the general prosperity. His wife and daughter were
courted by the highest nobility, and their alliance sought by the heirs of
ducal and princely houses. He bought two splendid estates in different
parts of France, and entered into a negotiation with the family of the
Duke de Sully for the purchase of the Marquisate of Rosny. His religion
being an obstacle to his advancement, the Regent promised, if he would
publicly conform to the Catholic faith, to make him comptroller-general of
the finances. Law, who had no more real religion than any other professed
gambler, readily agreed, and was confirmed by the Abbe de Tencin in the
cathedral of Melun, in presence of a great crowd of spectators.

[The following squib was circulated on the occasion:—

Thus, somewhat weakly and paraphrastically rendered by Justansond, in his
translation of the “Memoirs of Louis XV:”—

On the following day he was elected honorary churchwarden of the parish of
St. Roch, upon which occasion he made it a present of the sum of five
hundred thousand livres. His charities, always magnificent, were not
always so ostentatious. He gave away great sums privately, and no tale of
real distress ever reached his ears in vain.

At this time, he was by far the most influential person of the state. The
Duke of Orleans had so much confidence in his sagacity, and the success of
his plans, that he always consulted him upon every matter of moment. He
was by no means unduly elevated by his prosperity, but remained the same
simple, affable, sensible man that he had shown himself in adversity. His
gallantry, which was always delightful to the fair objects of it, was of a
nature, so kind, so gentlemanly, and so respectful, that not even a lover
could have taken offence at it. If upon any occasion he showed any
symptoms of haughtiness, it was to the cringing nobles, who lavished their
adulation upon him till it became fulsome. He often took pleasure in
seeing how long he could make them dance attendance upon him for a single
favour. To such of his own countrymen as by chance visited Paris, and
sought an interview with him, he was, on the contrary, all politeness and
attention. When Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and afterwards Duke of
Argyle, called upon him in the Place Vendome, he had to pass through an
ante-chamber crowded with persons of the first distinction, all anxious to
see the great financier, and have their names put down as first on the
list of some new subscription. Law himself was quietly sitting in his
library, writing a letter to the gardener at his paternal estate of
Lauriston about the planting of some cabbages! The Earl stayed for a
considerable time, played a game of piquet with his countryman, and left
him, charmed with his ease, good sense, and good breeding.

Among the nobles who, by means of the public credulity at this time,
gained sums sufficient to repair their ruined fortunes, may be mentioned
the names of the Dukes de Bourbon, de Guiche, de la Force [The Duke de la
Force gained considerable sums, not only by jobbing in the stocks, but in
dealing in porcelain, spices, &c. It was debated for a length of time
in the Parliament of Paris whether he had not, in his quality of
spice-merchant, forfeited his rank in the peerage. It was decided in the
negative. A caricature of him was made, dressed as a street porter,
carrying a large bale of spices on his back, with the inscription,
“Admirez La Force.”], de Chaulnes, and d’Antin; the Marechal d’Estrees,
the Princes de Rohan, de Poix, and de Leon. The Duke de Bourbon, son of
Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan, was peculiarly fortunate in his
speculations in Mississippi paper. He rebuilt the royal residence of
Chantilly in a style of unwonted magnificence, and, being passionately
fond of horses, he erected a range of stables, which were long renowned
throughout Europe, and imported a hundred and fifty of the finest racers
from England, to improve the breed in France. He bought a large extent of
country in Picardy, and became possessed of nearly all the valuable lands
lying between the Oise and the Somme.

When fortunes such as these were gained, it is no wonder that Law should
have been almost worshipped by the mercurial population. Never was monarch
more flattered than he was. All the small poets and litterateurs of the
day poured floods of adulation upon him. According to them he was the
saviour of the country, the tutelary divinity of France; wit was in all
his words, goodness in all his looks, and wisdom in all his actions. So
great a crowd followed his carriage whenever he went abroad, that the
Regent sent him a troop of horse as his permanent escort, to clear the
streets before him.

It was remarked at this time, that Paris had never before been so full of
objects of elegance and luxury. Statues, pictures, and tapestries were
imported in great quantities from foreign countries, and found a ready
market. All those pretty trifles in the way of furniture and ornament
which the French excel in manufacturing, were no longer the exclusive
play-things of the aristocracy, but were to be found in abundance in the
houses of traders and the middle classes in general. Jewellery of the most
costly description was brought to Paris as the most favourable mart. Among
the rest, the famous diamond, bought by the Regent, and called by his
name, and which long adorned the crown of France. It was purchased for the
sum of two millions of livres, under circumstances which show that the
Regent was not so great a gainer as some of his subjects, by the impetus
which trade had received. When the diamond was first offered to him, he
refused to buy it, although he desired, above all things, to possess it,
alleging as his reason, that his duty to the country he governed would not
allow him to spend so large a sum of the public money for a mere jewel.
This valid and honourable excuse threw all the ladies of the court into
alarm, and nothing was heard for some days but expressions of regret, that
so rare a gem should be allowed to go out of France; no private individual
being rich enough to buy it. The Regent was continually importuned about
it; but all in vain, until the Duke de St. Simon, who, with all his
ability, was something of a twaddler, undertook the weighty business. His
entreaties, being seconded by Law, the good-natured Regent gave his
consent, leaving to Law’s ingenuity to find the means to pay for it. The
owner took security for the payment of the sum of two millions of livres
within a stated period, receiving, in the mean time, the interest of five
per cent. upon that amount, and being allowed, besides, all the valuable
clippings of the gem. St. Simon, in his Memoirs, relates, with no little
complacency, his share in this transaction. After describing the diamond
to be as large as a greengage, of a form nearly round, perfectly white,
and without flaw, and weighing more than five hundred grains, he concludes
with a chuckle, by telling the world, “that he takes great credit to
himself for having induced the Regent to make so illustrious a purchase.”
In other words, he was proud that he had induced him to sacrifice his
duty, and buy a bauble for himself, at an extravagant price, out of the
public money.

Thus the system continued to flourish till the commencement of the year
1720. The warnings of the Parliament, that too great a creation of paper
money would, sooner or later, bring the country to bankruptcy, were
disregarded. The Regent, who knew nothing whatever of the philosophy of
finance, thought that a system which had produced such good effects could
never be carried to excess. If five hundred millions of paper had been of
such advantage, five hundred millions additional would be of still greater
advantage. This was the grand error of the Regent, and which Law did not
attempt to dispel. The extraordinary avidity of the people kept up the
delusion; and the higher the price of Indian and Mississippi stock, the
more billets de banque were issued to keep pace with it. The edifice thus
reared might not unaptly be compared to the gorgeous palace erected by
Potemkin, that princely barbarian of Russia, to surprise and please his
imperial mistress: huge blocks of ice were piled one upon another; ionic
pillars, of chastest workmanship, in ice, formed a noble portico; and a
dome, of the same material, shone in the sun, which had just strength
enough to gild, but not to melt it. It glittered afar, like a palace of
crystals and diamonds; but there came one warm breeze from the south, and
the stately building dissolved away, till none were able even to gather up
the fragments. So with Law and his paper system. No sooner did the breath
of popular mistrust blow steadily upon it, than it fell to ruins, and none
could raise it up again.

The first slight alarm that was occasioned was early in 1720. The Prince
de Conti, offended that Law should have denied him fresh shares in India
stock, at his own price, sent to his bank to demand payment in specie of
so enormous a quantity of notes, that three waggons were required for its
transport. Law complained to the Regent, and urged on his attention the
mischief that would be done, if such an example found many imitators. The
Regent was but too well aware of it, and, sending for the Prince de Conti,
ordered him, under penalty of his high displeasure, to refund to the Bank
two-thirds of the specie which he had withdrawn from it. The Prince was
forced to obey the despotic mandate. Happily for Law’s credit, De Conti
was an unpopular man: everybody condemned his meanness and cupidity, and
agreed that Law had been hardly treated. It is strange, however, that so
narrow an escape should not have made both Law and the Regent more anxious
to restrict their issues. Others were soon found who imitated, from
motives of distrust, the example which had been set by De Conti in
revenge. The more acute stockjobbers imagined justly that prices could not
continue to rise for ever. Bourdon and La Richardiere, renowned for their
extensive operations in the funds, quietly and in small quantities at a
time, converted their notes into specie, and sent it away to foreign
countries. They also bought as much as they could conveniently carry of
plate and expensive jewellery, and sent it secretly away to England or to
Holland. Vermalet, a jobber, who sniffed the coming storm, procured gold
and silver coin to the amount of nearly a million of livres, which he
packed in a farmer’s cart, and covered over with hay and cow-dung. He then
disguised himself in the dirty smock-frock, or blouse, of a peasant, and
drove his precious load in safety into Belgium. From thence he soon found
means to transport it to Amsterdam.

Hitherto no difficulty had been experienced by any class in procuring
specie for their wants. But this system could not long be carried on
without causing a scarcity. The voice of complaint was heard on every
side, and inquiries being instituted, the cause was soon discovered. The
council debated long on the remedies to be taken, and Law, being called on
for his advice, was of opinion, that an edict should be published,
depreciating the value of coin five per cent. below that of paper. The
edict was published accordingly; but, failing of its intended effect, was
followed by another, in which the depreciation was increased to ten per
cent. The payments of the bank were at the same time restricted to one
hundred livres in gold, and ten in silver. All these measures were
nugatory to restore confidence in the paper, though the restriction of
cash payments within limits so extremely narrow kept up the credit of the
Bank.

Notwithstanding every effort to the contrary, the precious metals
continued to be conveyed to England and Holland. The little coin that was
left in the country was carefully treasured, or hidden until the scarcity
became so great, that the operations of trade could no longer be carried
on. In this emergency, Law hazarded the bold experiment of forbidding the
use of specie altogether. In February 1720 an edict was published, which,
instead of restoring the credit of the paper, as was intended, destroyed
it irrecoverably, and drove the country to the very brink of revolution.
By this famous edict it was forbidden to any person whatever to have more
than five hundred livres (20 pounds sterling) of coin in his possession,
under pain of a heavy fine, and confiscation of the sums found. It was
also forbidden to buy up jewellery, plate, and precious stones, and
informers were encouraged to make search for offenders, by the promise of
one-half the amount they might discover. The whole country sent up a cry
of distress at this unheard-of tyranny. The most odious persecution daily
took place. The privacy of families was violated by the intrusion of
informers and their agents. The most virtuous and honest were denounced
for the crime of having been seen with a louis d’or in their possession.
Servants betrayed their masters, one citizen became a spy upon his
neighbour, and arrests and confiscations so multiplied, that the courts
found a difficulty in getting through the immense increase of business
thus occasioned. It was sufficient for an informer to say that he
suspected any person of concealing money in his house, and immediately a
search-warrant was granted. Lord Stair, the English ambassador, said, that
it was now impossible to doubt of the sincerity of Law’s conversion to the
Catholic religion; he had established the inquisition, after having given
abundant evidence of his faith in transubstantiation, by turning so much
gold into paper.

Every epithet that popular hatred could suggest was showered upon the
Regent and the unhappy Law. Coin, to any amount above five hundred livres,
was an illegal tender, and nobody would take paper if he could help it. No
one knew to-day what his notes would be worth to-morrow. “Never,” says
Duclos, in his Secret Memoirs of the Regency, “was seen a more capricious
government-never was a more frantic tyranny exercised by hands less firm.
It is inconceivable to those who were witnesses of the horrors of those
times, and who look back upon them now as on a dream, that a sudden
revolution did not break out—that Law and the Regent did not perish
by a tragical death. They were both held in horror, but the people
confined themselves to complaints; a sombre and timid despair, a stupid
consternation, had seized upon all, and men’s minds were too vile even to
be capable of a courageous crime.” It would appear that, at one time, a
movement of the people was organised. Seditious writings were posted up
against the walls, and were sent, in hand-bills, to the houses of the most
conspicuous people. One of them, given in the “Memoires de la Regence,”
was to the following effect:—”Sir and Madam,—This is to give
you notice that a St. Bartholomew’s Day will be enacted again on Saturday
and Sunday, if affairs do not alter. You are desired not to stir out, nor
you, nor your servants. God preserve you from the flames! Give notice to
your neighbours. Dated Saturday, May 25th, 1720.” The immense number of
spies with which the city was infested rendered the people mistrustful of
one another, and beyond some trifling disturbances made in the evening by
an insignificant group, which was soon dispersed, the peace of the capital
was not compromised.

The value of shares in the Louisiana, or Mississippi stock, had fallen
very rapidly, and few indeed were found to believe the tales that had once
been told of the immense wealth of that region. A last effort was
therefore tried to restore the public confidence in the Mississippi
project. For this purpose, a general conscription of all the poor wretches
in Paris was made by order of government. Upwards of six thousand of the
very refuse of the population were impressed, as if in time of war, and
were provided with clothes and tools to be embarked for New Orleans, to
work in the gold mines alleged to abound there. They were paraded day
after day through the streets with their pikes and shovels, and then sent
off in small detachments to the out-ports to be shipped for America.
Two-thirds of them never reached their destination, but dispersed
themselves over the country, sold their tools for what they could get, and
returned to their old course of life. In less than three weeks afterwards,
one-half of them were to be found again in Paris. The manoeuvre, however,
caused a trifling advance in Mississippi stock. Many persons of
superabundant gullibility believed that operations had begun in earnest in
the new Golconda, and that gold and silver ingots would again be found in
France.

In a constitutional monarchy some surer means would have been found for
the restoration of public credit. In England, at a subsequent period, when
a similar delusion had brought on similar distress, how different were the
measures taken to repair the evil; but in France, unfortunately, the
remedy was left to the authors of the mischief. The arbitrary will of the
Regent, which endeavoured to extricate the country, only plunged it deeper
into the mire. All payments were ordered to be made in paper, and between
the 1st of February and the end of May, notes were fabricated to the
amount of upwards of 1500 millions of livres, or 60,000,000 pounds
sterling. But the alarm once sounded, no art could make the people feel
the slightest confidence in paper which was not exchangeable into metal.
M. Lambert, the President of the Parliament of Paris, told the Regent to
his face that he would rather have a hundred thousand livres in gold or
silver than five millions in the notes of his bank. When such was the
general feeling, the superabundant issues of paper but increased the evil,
by rendering still more enormous the disparity between the amount of
specie and notes in circulation. Coin, which it was the object of the
Regent to depreciate, rose in value on every fresh attempt to diminish it.
In February, it was judged advisable that the Royal Bank should be
incorporated with the Company of the Indies. An edict to that effect was
published and registered by the Parliament. The state remained the
guarantee for the notes of the bank, and no more were to be issued without
an order in council. All the profits of the bank, since the time it had
been taken out of Law’s hands and made a national institution, were given
over by the Regent to the Company of the Indies. This measure had the
effect of raising for a short time the value of the Louisiana and other
shares of the company, but it failed in placing public credit on any
permanent basis.

A council of state was held in the beginning of May, at which Law,
D’Argenson (his colleague in the administration of the finances), and all
the ministers were present. It was then computed that the total amount of
notes in circulation was 2600 millions of livres, while the coin in the
country was not quite equal to half that amount. It was evident to the
majority of the council that some plan must be adopted to equalise the
currency. Some proposed that the notes should be reduced to the value of
the specie, while others proposed that the nominal value of the specie
should be raised till it was on an equality with the paper. Law is said to
have opposed both these projects, but failing in suggesting any other, it
was agreed that the notes should be depreciated one-half. On the 21st of
May, an edict was accordingly issued, by which it was decreed that the
shares of the Company of the Indies, and the notes of the bank, should
gradually diminish in value, till at the end of a year they should only
pass current for one half of their nominal worth. The Parliament refused
to register the edict—the greatest outcry was excited, and the state
of the country became so alarming, that, as the only means of preserving
tranquillity, the council of the regency was obliged to stultify its own
proceedings, by publishing within seven days another edict, restoring the
notes to their original value.

On the same day (the 27th of May) the bank stopped payment in specie. Law
and D’Argenson were both dismissed from the ministry. The weak,
vacillating, and cowardly Regent threw the blame of all the mischief upon
Law, who, upon presenting himself at the Palais Royal, was refused
admitance. At nightfall, however, he was sent for, and admitted into the
palace by a secret door,[Duclos, Memoires Secrets de la Regence.] when the
Regent endeavoured to console him, and made all manner of excuses for the
severity with which in public he had been compelled to treat him. So
capricious was his conduct, that, two days afterwards, he took him
publicly to the opera, where he sat in the royal box, alongside of the
Regent, who treated him with marked consideration in face of all the
people. But such was the hatred against Law that the experiment had well
nigh proved fatal to him. The mob assailed his carriage with stones just
as he was entering his own door; and if the coachman had not made a sudden
jerk into the court-yard, and the domestics closed the gate immediately,
he would, in all probability, have been dragged out and torn to pieces. On
the following day, his wife and daughter were also assailed by the mob as
they were returning in their carriage from the races. When the Regent was
informed of these occurrences he sent Law a strong detachment of Swiss
guards, who were stationed night and day in the court of his residence.
The public indignation at last increased so much, that Law, finding his
own house, even with this guard, insecure, took refuge in the Palais
Royal, in the apartments of the Regent.

The Chancellor, D’Aguesseau, who had been dismissed in 1718 for his
opposition to the projects of Law, was now recalled to aid in the
restoration of credit. The Regent acknowledged too late, that he had
treated with unjustifiable harshness and mistrust one of the ablest, and
perhaps the sole honest public man of that corrupt period. He had retired
ever since his disgrace to his country-house at Fresnes, where, in the
midst of severe but delightful philosophic studies, he had forgotten the
intrigues of an unworthy court. Law himself, and the Chevalier de
Conflans, a gentleman of the Regent’s household, were despatched in a
post-chaise, with orders to bring the ex-chancellor to Paris along with
them. D’Aguesseau consented to render what assistance he could, contrary
to the advice of his friends, who did not approve that he should accept
any recall to office of which Law was the bearer. On his arrival in Paris,
five counsellors of the Parliament were admitted to confer with the
Commissary of Finance, and on the 1st of June an order was published,
abolishing the law which made it criminal to amass coin to the amount of
more than five hundred livres. Every one was permitted to have as much
specie as he pleased. In order that the bank-notes might be withdrawn,
twenty-five millions of new notes were created, on the security of the
revenues of the city of Paris, at two-and-a-half per cent. The bank-notes
withdrawn were publicly burned in front of the Hotel de Ville. The new
notes were principally of the value of ten livres each; and on the 10th of
June the bank was re-opened, with a sufficiency of silver coin to give in
change for them.

These measures were productive of considerable advantage. All the
population of Paris hastened to the bank, to get coin for their small
notes; and silver becoming scarce, they were paid in copper. Very few
complained that this was too heavy, although poor fellows might be
continually seen toiling and sweating along the streets, laden with more
than they could comfortably carry, in the shape of change for fifty
livres. The crowds around the bank were so great, that hardly a day passed
that some one was not pressed to death. On the 9th of July, the multitude
was so dense and clamorous that the guards stationed at the entrance of
the Mazarin Gardens closed the gate, and refused to admit any more. The
crowd became incensed, and flung stones through the railings upon the
soldiers. The latter, incensed in their turn, threatened to fire upon the
people. At that instant one of them was hit by a stone, and, taking up his
piece, he fired into the crowd. One man fell dead immediately, and another
was severely wounded. It was every instant expected that a general attack
would have been commenced upon the bank; but the gates of the Mazarin
Gardens being opened to the crowd, who saw a whole troop of soldiers, with
their bayonets fixed, ready to receive them, they contented themselves by
giving vent to their indignation in groans and hisses.

Eight days afterwards the concourse of people was so tremendous, that
fifteen persons were squeezed to death at the doors of the bank. The
people were so indignant that they took three of the bodies on stretchers
before them, and proceeded, to the number of seven or eight thousand, to
the gardens of the Palais Royal, that they might show the Regent the
misfortunes that he and Law had brought upon the country. Law’s coachman,
who was sitting on the box of his master’s carriage, in the court-yard of
the palace, happened to have more zeal than discretion, and, not liking
that the mob should abuse his master, he said, loud enough to be overheard
by several persons, that they were all blackguards, and deserved to be
hanged. The mob immediately set upon him, and, thinking that Law was in
the carriage, broke it to pieces. The imprudent coachman narrowly escaped
with his life. No further mischief was done; a body of troops making their
appearance, the crowd quietly dispersed, after an assurance had been given
by the Regent that the three bodies they had brought to show him should be
decently buried at his own expense. The Parliament was sitting at the time
of this uproar, and the President took upon himself to go out and see what
was the matter. On his return he informed the councillors, that Law’s
carriage had been broken by the mob. All the members rose simultaneously,
and expressed their joy by a loud shout, while one man, more zealous in
his hatred than the rest, exclaimed, “And Law himself, is he torn to
pieces?” [The Duchess of Orleans gives a different version of this story;
but whichever be the true one, the manifestation of such feeling in a
legislative assembly was not very creditable. She says, that the President
was so transported with joy, that he was seized with a rhyming fit, and,
returning into the hall, exclaimed to the members:—

Much undoubtedly depended on the credit of the Company of the Indies,
which was answerable for so great a sum to the nation. It was, therefore,
suggested in the council of the ministry, that any privileges which could
be granted to enable it to fulfil its engagements, would be productive of
the best results. With this end in view, it was proposed that the
exclusive privilege of all maritime commerce should be secured to it, and
an edict to that effect was published. But it was unfortunately forgotten
that by such a measure all the merchants of the country would be ruined.
The idea of such an immense privilege was generally scouted by the nation,
and petition on petition was presented to the Parliament, that they would
refuse to register the decree. They refused accordingly, and the Regent,
remarking that they did nothing but fan the flame of sedition, exiled them
to Blois. At the intercession of D’Aguesseau, the place of banishment was
changed to Pontoise, and thither accordingly the councillors repaired,
determined to set the Regent at defiance. They made every arrangement for
rendering their temporary exile as agreeable as possible. The President
gave the most elegant suppers, to which he invited all the gayest and
wittiest company of Paris. Every night there was a concert and ball for
the ladies. The usually grave and solemn judges and councillors joined in
cards and other diversions, leading for several weeks a life of the most
extravagant pleasure, for no other purpose than to show the Regent of how
little consequence they deemed their banishment, and that when they willed
it, they could make Pontoise a pleasanter residence than Paris.

Of all the nations in the world the French are the most renowned for
singing over their grievances. Of that country it has been remarked with
some truth, that its whole history may be traced in its songs. When Law,
by the utter failure of his best-laid plans, rendered himself obnoxious,
satire of course seized hold upon him, and, while caricatures of his
person appeared in all the shops, the streets resounded with songs, in
which neither he nor the Regent was spared. Many of these songs were far
from decent; and one of them in particular counselled the application of
all his notes to the most ignoble use to which paper can be applied. But
the following, preserved in the letters of the Duchess of Orleans, was the
best and the most popular, and was to be heard for months in all the
carrefours of Paris. The application of the chorus is happy enough:—

The following smart epigram is of the same date:—

Among the caricatures that were abundantly published, and that showed as
plainly as graver matters, that the nation had awakened to a sense of its
folly, was one, a fac-simile of which is preserved in the “Memoires de la
Regence.” It was thus described by its author: “The ‘Goddess of Shares,”
in her triumphal car, driven by the Goddess of Folly. Those who are
drawing the car are impersonations of the Mississippi, with his wooden
leg, the South Sea, the Bank of England, the Company of the West of
Senegal, and of various assurances. Lest the car should not roll fast
enough, the agents of these companies, known by their long fox-tails and
their cunning looks, turn round the spokes of the wheels, upon which are
marked the names of the several stocks, and their value, sometimes high
and sometimes low, according to the turns of the wheel. Upon the ground
are the merchandise, day-books and ledgers of legitimate commerce, crushed
under the chariot of Folly. Behind is an immense crowd of persons, of all
ages, sexes, and conditions, clamoring after Fortune, and fighting with
each other to get a portion of the shares which she distributes so
bountifully among them. In the clouds sits a demon, blowing bubbles of
soap, which are also the objects of the admiration and cupidity of the
crowd, who jump upon one another’s backs to reach them ere they burst.
Right in the pathway of the car, and blocking up the passage, stands a
large building, with three doors, through one of which it must pass, if it
proceeds further, and all the crowd along with it. Over the first door are
the words, “Hopital des Foux,” over the second, “Hopital des Malades,” and
over the third, “Hopital des Gueux.” Another caricature represented Law
sitting in a large cauldron, boiling over the flames of popular madness,
surrounded by an impetuous multitude, who were pouring all their gold and
silver into it, and receiving gladly in exchange the bits of paper which
he distributed among them by handsfull.

While this excitement lasted, Law took good care not to expose himself
unguarded in the streets. Shut up in the apartments of the Regent, he was
secure from all attack, and, whenever he ventured abroad, it was either
incognito, or in one of the Royal carriages, with a powerful escort. An
amusing anecdote is recorded of the detestation in which he was held by
the people, and the ill treatment he would have met, had he fallen into
their hands. A gentleman, of the name of Boursel, was passing in his
carriage down the Rue St. Antoine, when his further progress was stayed by
a hackneycoach that had blocked up the road. M. Boursel’s servant called
impatiently to the hackneycoachman to get out of the way, and, on his
refusal, struck him a blow on the face. A crowd was soon drawn together by
the disturbance, and M. Boursel got out of the carriage to restore order.
The hackney-coachman, imagining that he had now another assailant,
bethought him of an expedient to rid himself of both, and called out as
loudly as he was able, “Help! help! murder! murder! Here are Law and his
servant going to kill me! Help! help!” At this cry, the people came out of
their shops, armed with sticks and other weapons, while the mob gathered
stones to inflict summary vengeance upon the supposed financier. Happily
for M. Boursel and his servant, the door of the church of the Jesuits
stood wide open, and, seeing the fearful odds against them, they rushed
towards it with all speed. They reached the altar, pursued by the people,
and would have been ill treated even there, if, finding the door open
leading to the sacristy, they had not sprang through, and closed it after
them. The mob were then persuaded to leave the church by the alarmed and
indignant priests; and, finding M. Boursel’s carriage still in the
streets, they vented their ill-will against it, and did it considerable
damage.

The twenty-five millions secured on the municipal revenues of the city of
Paris, bearing so low an interest as two and a half per cent., were not
very popular among the large holders of Mississippi stock. The conversion
of the securities was, therefore, a work of considerable difficulty; for
many preferred to retain the falling paper of Law’s Company, in the hope
that a favourable turn might take place. On the 15th of August, with a
view to hasten the conversion, an edict was passed, declaring that all
notes for sums between one thousand and ten thousand livres; should not
pass current, except for the purchase of annuities and bank accounts, or
for the payment of instalments still due on the shares of the company.

In October following another edict was passed, depriving these notes of
all value whatever after the month of November next ensuing. The
management of the mint, the farming of the revenue, and all the other
advantages and privileges of the India, or Mississippi Company, were taken
from them, and they were reduced to a mere private company. This was the
deathblow to the whole system, which had now got into the hands of its
enemies. Law had lost all influence in the Council of Finance, and the
company, being despoiled of its immunities, could no longer hold out the
shadow of a prospect of being able to fulfil its engagements. All those
suspected of illegal profits at the time the public delusion was at its
height, were sought out and amerced in heavy fines. It was previously
ordered that a list of the original proprietors should be made out, and
that such persons as still retained their shares should place them in
deposit with the company, and that those who had neglected to complete the
shares for which they had put down their names, should now purchase them
of the company, at the rate of 13,500 livres for each share of 500 livres.
Rather than submit to pay this enormous sum for stock which was actually
at a discount, the shareholders packed up all their portable effects, and
endeavoured to find a refuge in foreign countries. Orders were immediately
issued to the authorities at the ports and frontiers, to apprehend all
travellers who sought to leave the kingdom, and keep them in custody,
until it was ascertained whether they had any plate or jewellery with
them, or were concerned in the late stock-jobbing. Against such few as
escaped, the punishment of death was recorded, while the most arbitrary
proceedings were instituted against those who remained.

Law himself, in a moment of despair, determined to leave a country where
his life was no longer secure. He at first only demanded permission to
retire from Paris to one of his country-seats; a permission which the
Regent cheerfully granted. The latter was much affected at the unhappy
turn affairs had taken, but his faith continued unmoved in the truth and
efficacy of Law’s financial system. His eyes were opened to his own
errors, and during the few remaining years of his life, he constantly
longed for an opportunity of again establishing the system upon a securer
basis. At Law’s last interview with the Prince, he is reported to have
said—”I confess that I have committed many faults; I committed them
because I am a man, and all men are liable to error; but I declare to you
most solemnly that none of them proceeded from wicked or dishonest
motives, and that nothing of the kind will be found in the whole course of
my conduct.”

Two or three days after his departure the Regent sent him a very kind
letter, permitting him to leave the kingdom whenever he pleased, and
stating that he had ordered his passports to be made ready. He at the same
time offered him any sum of money he might require. Law respectfully
declined the money, and set out for Brussels in a postchaise belonging to
Madame de Prie, the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon, escorted by six
horse-guards. From thence he proceeded to Venice, where he remained for
some months, the object of the greatest curiosity to the people, who
believed him to be the possessor of enormous wealth. No opinion, however,
could be more erroneous. With more generosity than could have been
expected from a man who during the greatest part of his life had been a
professed gambler, he had refused to enrich himself at the expense of a
ruined nation. During the height of the popular frenzy for Mississippi
stock, he had never doubted of the final success of his projects, in
making France the richest and most powerful nation of Europe. He invested
all his gains in the purchase of landed property in France—a sure
proof of his own belief in the stability of his schemes. He had hoarded no
plate or jewellery, and sent no money, like the dishonest jobbers, to
foreign countries. His all, with the exception of one diamond, worth about
five or six thousand pounds sterling, was invested in the French soil; and
when he left that country, he left it almost a beggar. This fact alone
ought to rescue his memory from the charge of knavery, so often and so
unjustly brought against him.

As soon as his departure was known, all his estates and his valuable
library were confiscated. Among the rest, an annuity of 200,000 livres,
(8000 pounds sterling,) on the lives of his wife and children, which had
been purchased for five millions of livres, was forfeited, notwithstanding
that a special edict, drawn up for the purpose in the days of his
prosperity, had expressly declared that it should never be confiscated for
any cause whatever. Great discontent existed among the people that Law had
been suffered to escape. The mob and the Parliament would have been
pleased to have seen him hanged. The few who had not suffered by the
commercial revolution, rejoiced that the quack had left the country; but
all those (and they were by far the most numerous class) whose fortunes
were implicated, regretted that his intimate knowledge of the distress of
the country, and of the causes that had led to it, had not been rendered
more available in discovering a remedy.

At a meeting of the Council of Finance, and the general council of the
Regency, documents were laid upon the table, from which it appeared that
the amount of notes in circulation was 2700 millions. The Regent was
called upon to explain how it happened that there was a discrepancy
between the dates at which these issues were made, and those of the edicts
by which they were authorised. He might have safely taken the whole blame
upon himself, but he preferred that an absent man should bear a share of
it, and he therefore stated that Law, upon his own authority, had issued
1200 millions of notes at different times, and that he (the Regent) seeing
that the thing had been irrevocably done, had screened Law, by antedating
the decrees of the council, which authorised the augmentation. It would
have been more to his credit if he had told the whole truth while he was
about it, and acknowledged that it was mainly through his extravagance and
impatience that Law had been induced to overstep the bounds of safe
speculation. It was also ascertained that the national debt, on the 1st of
January, 1721, amounted to upwards of $100 millions of livres, or more
than 124,000,000 pounds sterling, the interest upon which was 3,196,000
pounds. A commission, or visa, was forthwith appointed to examine into all
the securities of the state creditors, who were to be divided into five
classes, the first four comprising those who had purchased their
securities with real effects, and the latter comprising those who could
give no proofs that the transactions they had entered into were real and
bona fide. The securities of the latter were ordered to be destroyed,
while those of the first four classes were subjected to a most rigid and
jealous scrutiny. The result of the labours of the visa was a report, in
which they counselled the reduction of the interest upon these securities
to fifty-six millions of livres. They justified this advice by a statement
of the various acts of peculation and extortion which they had discovered,
and an edict to that effect was accordingly published and duly registered
by the parliaments of the kingdom.

Another tribunal was afterwards established, under the title of the
Chambre de l’Arsenal, which took cognizance of all the malversations
committed in the financial departments of the government during the late
unhappy period. A Master of Requests, named Falhonet, together with the
Abbe Clement, and two clerks in their employ, had been concerned in divers
acts of peculation, to the amount of upwards of a million of livres. The
first two were sentenced to be beheaded, and the latter to be hanged; but
their punishment was afterwards commuted into imprisonment for life in the
Bastile. Numerous other acts of dishonesty were discovered, and punished
by fine and imprisonment.

D’Argenson shared with Law and the Regent the unpopularity which had
alighted upon all those concerned in the Mississippi madness. He was
dismissed from his post of Chancellor, to make room for D’Aguesseau; but
he retained the title of Keeper of the Seals, and was allowed to attend
the councils whenever he pleased. He thought it better, however, to
withdraw from Paris, and live for a time a life of seclusion at his
country-seat. But he was not formed for retirement, and becoming moody and
discontented, he aggravated a disease under which he had long laboured,
and died in less than a twelvemonth. The populace of of Paris so detested
him, that they carried their hatred even to his grave. As his funeral
procession passed to the church of St. Nicholas du Chardonneret, the
burying-place of his family, it was beset by a riotous mob, and his two
sons, who were following as chief-mourners, were obliged to drive as fast
as they were able down a by-street to escape personal violence.

As regards Law, he for some time entertained a hope that he should be
recalled to France, to aid in establishing its credit upon a firmer basis.
The death of the Regent, in 1723, who expired suddenly, as he was sitting
by the fireside conversing with his mistress, the Duchess de Phalaris,
deprived him of that hope, and he was reduced to lead his former life of
gambling. He was more than once obliged to pawn his diamond, the sole
remnant of his vast wealth, but successful play generally enabled him to
redeem it. Being persecuted by his creditors at Rome, he proceeded to
Copenhagen, where he received permission from the English ministry to
reside in his native country, his pardon for the murder of Mr. Wilson
having been sent over to him in 1719. He was brought over in the admiral’s
ship, a circumstance which gave occasion for a short debate in the House
of Lords. Earl Coningsby complained that a man, who had renounced both his
country and his religion, should have been treated with such honour, and
expressed his belief that his presence in England, at a time when the
people were so bewildered by the nefarious practices of the South Sea
directors, would be attended with no little danger. He gave notice of a
motion on the subject; but it was allowed to drop, no other member of the
House having the slightest participation in his lordship’s fears. Law
remained for about four years in England, and then proceeded to Venice,
where he died in 1729, in very embarrassed circumstances. The following
epitaph was written at the time:—

His brother, William Law, who had been concerned with him in the
administration both of the Bank and the Louisiana Company, was imprisoned
in the Bastile for alleged malversation, but no guilt was ever proved
against him. He was liberated after fifteen months, and became the founder
of a family, which is still known in France under the title of Marquises
of Lauriston.

In the next chapter will be found an account of the madness which infected
the people of England at the same time, and under very similar
circumstances, but which, thanks to the energies and good sense of a
constitutional government, was attended with results far less disastrous
than those which were seen in France.

THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE

The South Sea Company was originated by the celebrated Harley, Earl of
Oxford, in the year 1711, with the view of restoring public credit, which
had suffered by the dismissal of the Whig ministry, and of providing for
the discharge of the army and navy debentures, and other parts of the
floating debt, amounting to nearly ten millions sterling. A company of
merchants, at that time without a name, took this debt upon themselves,
and the government agreed to secure them, for a certain period, the
interest of six per cent. To provide for this interest, amounting to
600,000 pounds per annum, the duties upon wines, vinegar, India goods,
wrought silks, tobacco, whale-fins, and some other articles, were rendered
permanent. The monopoly of the trade to the South Seas was granted, and
the company, being incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by
which it has ever since been known. The minister took great credit to
himself for his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always
called by his flatterers “the Earl of Oxford’s masterpiece.”

Even at this early period of its history, the most visionary ideas were
formed by the company and the public of the immense riches of the eastern
coast of South America. Everybody had heard of the gold and silver mines
of Peru and Mexico; every one believed them to be inexhaustible, and that
it was only necessary to send the manufactures of England to the coast, to
be repaid a hundredfold in gold and silver ingots by the natives. A
report, industriously spread, that Spain was willing to concede four
ports, on the coasts of Chili and Peru, for the purposes of traffic,
increased the general confidence; and for many years the South Sea
Company’s stock was in high favour.

Philip V of Spain, however, never had any intention of admitting the
English to a free trade in the ports of Spanish America. Negotiations were
set on foot, but their only result was the assiento contract, or the
privilege of supplying the colonies with negroes for thirty years, and of
sending once a year a vessel, limited both as to tonnage and value of
cargo, to trade with Mexico, Peru, or Chili. The latter permission was
only granted upon the hard condition, that the King of Spain should enjoy
one-fourth of the profits, and a tax of five per cent. on the remainder.
This was a great disappointment to the Earl of Oxford and his party, who
were reminded much oftener than they found agreeable of the

But the public confidence in the South Sea Company was not shaken. The
Earl of Oxford declared, that Spain would permit two ships, in addition to
the annual ship, to carry out merchandise during the first year; and a
list was published, in which all the ports and harbours of these coasts
were pompously set forth as open to the trade of Great Britain. The first
voyage of the annual ship was not made till the year 1717, and in the
following year the trade was suppressed by the rupture with Spain.

The King’s speech, at the opening of the session of 1717, made pointed
allusion to the state of public credit, and recommended that proper
measures should be taken to reduce the national debt. The two great
monetary corporations, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England, made
proposals to Parliament on the 20th of May ensuing. The South Sea Company
prayed that their capital stock of ten millions might be increased to
twelve, by subscription or otherwise, and offered to accept five per cent.
instead of six upon the whole amount. The Bank made proposals equally
advantageous. The House debated for some time, and finally three acts were
passed, called the South Sea Act, the Bank Act, and the General Fund Act.
By the first, the proposals of the South Sea Company were accepted, and
that body held itself ready to advance the sum of two millions towards
discharging the principal and interest of the debt due by the state for
the four lottery funds of the ninth and tenth years of Queen Anne. By the
second act, the Bank received a lower rate of interest for the sum of
1,775,027 pounds 15 shillings due to it by the state, and agreed to
deliver up to be cancelled as many Exchequer bills as amounted to two
millions sterling, and to accept of an annuity of one hundred thousand
pounds, being after the rate of five per cent, the whole redeemable at one
year’s notice. They were further required to be ready to advance, in case
of need, a sum not exceeding 2,500,000 pounds upon the same terms of five
per cent interest, redeemable by Parliament. The General Fund Act recited
the various deficiencies, which were to be made good by the aids derived
from the foregoing sources.

The name of the South Sea Company was thus continually before the public.
Though their trade with the South American States produced little or no
augmentation of their revenues, they continued to flourish as a monetary
corporation. Their stock was in high request, and the directors, buoyed up
with success, began to think of new means for extending their influence.
The Mississippi scheme of John Law, which so dazzled and captivated the
French people, inspired them with an idea that they could carry on the
same game in England. The anticipated failure of his plans did not divert
them from their intention. Wise in their own conceit, they imagined they
could avoid his faults, carry on their schemes for ever, and stretch the
cord of credit to its extremest tension, without causing it to snap
asunder.

It was while Law’s plan was at its greatest height of popularity, while
people were crowding in thousands to the Rue Quincampoix, and ruining
themselves with frantic eagerness, that the South Sea directors laid
before Parliament their famous plan for paying off the national debt.
Visions of boundless wealth floated before the fascinated eyes of the
people in the two most celebrated countries of Europe. The English
commenced their career of extravagance somewhat later than the French; but
as soon as the delirium seized them, they were determined not to be
outdone. Upon the 22nd of January 1720, the House of Commons resolved
itself into a Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration
that part of the King’s speech at the opening of the session which related
to the public debts, and the proposal of the South Sea Company towards the
redemption and sinking of the same. The proposal set forth at great
length, and under several heads, the debts of the state, amounting to
30,981,712 pounds, which the Company were anxious to take upon themselves,
upon consideration of five per cent. per annum, secured to them until
Midsummer 1727; after which time, the whole was to become redeemable at
the pleasure of the legislature, and the interest to be reduced to four
per cent. The proposal was received with great favour; but the Bank of
England had many friends in the House of Commons, who were desirous that
that body should share in the advantages that were likely to accrue. On
behalf of this corporation it was represented, that they had performed
great and eminent services to the state, in the most difficult times, and
deserved, at least, that if any advantage was to be made by public
bargains of this nature, they should be preferred before a company that
had never done any thing for the nation. The further consideration of the
matter was accordingly postponed for five days. In the mean time, a plan
was drawn up by the Governors of the Bank. The South Sea Company, afraid
that the Bank might offer still more advantageous terms to the government
than themselves, reconsidered their former proposal, and made some
alterations in it, which they hoped would render it more acceptable. The
principal change was a stipulation that the government might redeem these
debts at the expiration of four years, instead of seven, as at first
suggested. The Bank resolved not to be outbidden in this singular auction,
and the Governors also reconsidered their first proposal, and sent in a
new one.

Thus, each corporation having made two proposals, the House began to
deliberate. Mr. Robert Walpole was the chief speaker in favour of the
Bank, and Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the principal
advocate on behalf of the South Sea Company. It was resolved, on the 2nd
of February, that the proposals of the latter were most advantageous to
the country. They were accordingly received, and leave was given to bring
in a bill to that effect.

Exchange Alley was in a fever of excitement. The Company’s stock, which
had been at a hundred and thirty the previous day, gradually rose to three
hundred, and continued to rise with the most astonishing rapidity during
the whole time that the bill in its several stages was under discussion.
Mr. Walpole was almost the only statesman in the House who spoke out
boldly against it. He warned them, in eloquent and solemn language, of the
evils that would ensue. It countenanced, he said, “the dangerous practice
of stockjobbing, and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and
industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their
ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect
of imaginary wealth.” The great principle of the project was an evil of
first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock,
by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising
dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the purpose. In a
prophetic spirit he added, that if the plan succeeded, the directors would
become masters of the government, form a new and absolute aristocracy in
the kingdom, and control the resolutions of the legislature. If it failed,
which he was convinced it would, the result would bring general discontent
and ruin upon the country. Such would be the delusion, that when the evil
day came, as come it would, the people would start up, as from a dream,
and ask themselves if these things could have been true. All his eloquence
was in vain. He was looked upon as a false prophet, or compared to the
hoarse raven, croaking omens of evil. His friends, however, compared him
to Cassandra, predicting evils which would only be believed when they came
home to men’s hearths, and stared them in the face at their own boards.
Although, in former times, the House had listened with the utmost
attention to every word that fell from his lips, the benches became
deserted when it was known that he would speak on the South Sea question.

The bill was two months in its progress through the House of Commons.
During this time every exertion was made by the directors and their
friends, and more especially by the Chairman, the noted Sir John Blunt, to
raise the price of the stock. The most extravagant rumours were in
circulation. Treaties between England and Spain were spoken of, whereby
the latter was to grant a free trade to all her colonies; and the rich
produce of the mines of Potosi-la-Paz was to be brought to England until
silver should become almost as plentiful as iron. For cotton and woollen
goods, with which we could supply them in abundance, the dwellers in
Mexico were to empty their golden mines. The company of merchants trading
to the South Seas would be the richest the world ever saw, and every
hundred pounds invested in it would produce hundreds per annum to the
stockholder. At last the stock was raised by these means to near four
hundred; but, after fluctuating a good deal, settled at three hundred and
thirty, at which price it remained when the bill passed the Commons by a
majority of 172 against 55.

In the House of Lords the bill was hurried through all its stages with
unexampled rapidity. On the 4th of April it was read a first time; on the
5th, it was read a second time; on the 6th, it was committed; and on the
7th, was read a third time, and passed.

Several peers spoke warmly against the scheme; but their warnings fell
upon dull, cold ears. A speculating frenzy had seized them as well as the
plebeians. Lord North and Grey said the bill was unjust in its nature, and
might prove fatal in its consequences, being calculated to enrich the few
and impoverish the many. The Duke of Wharton followed; but, as he only
retailed at second-hand the arguments so eloquently stated by Walpole in
the Lower House, he was not listened to with even the same attention that
had been bestowed upon Lord North and Grey. Earl Cowper followed on the
same side, and compared the bill to the famous horse of the siege of Troy.
Like that, it was ushered in and received with great pomp and acclamations
of joy, but bore within it treachery and destruction. The Earl of
Sunderland endeavoured to answer all objections; and, on the question
being put, there appeared only seventeen peers against, and eighty-three
in favour of the project. The very same day on which it passed the Lords,
it received the Royal assent, and became the law of the land.

It seemed at that time as if the whole nation had turned stockjobbers.
Exchange Alley was every day blocked up by crowds, and Cornhill was
impassable for the number of carriages. Everybody came to purchase stock.
“Every fool aspired to be a knave.” In the words of a ballad, published at
the time, and sung about the streets, [“A South Sea Ballad; or, Merry
Remarks upon Exchange Alley Bubbles. To a new tune, called ‘The Grand
Elixir; or, the Philosopher’s Stone Discovered.'”]

The inordinate thirst of gain that had afflicted all ranks of society, was
not to be slaked even in the South Sea. Other schemes, of the most
extravagant kind, were started. The share-lists were speedily filled up,
and an enormous traffic carried on in shares, while, of course, every
means were resorted to, to raise them to an artificial value in the
market.

Contrary to all expectation, South Sea stock fell when the bill received
the Royal assent. On the 7th of April the shares were quoted at three
hundred and ten, and on the following day, at two hundred and ninety.
Already the directors had tasted the profits of their scheme, and it was
not likely that they should quietly allow the stock to find its natural
level, without an effort to raise it. Immediately their busy emissaries
were set to work. Every person interested in the success of the project
endeavoured to draw a knot of listeners around him, to whom he expatiated
on the treasures of the South American seas. Exchange Alley was crowded
with attentive groups. One rumour alone, asserted with the utmost
confidence, had an immediate effect upon the stock. It was said, that Earl
Stanhope had received overtures in France from the Spanish Government to
exchange Gibraltar and Port Mahon for some places on the coast of Peru,
for the security and enlargement of the trade in the South Seas. Instead
of one annual ship trading to those ports, and allowing the King of Spain
twenty-five per cent. out of the profits, the Company might build and
charter as many ships as they pleased, and pay no per centage whatever to
any foreign potentate.

Visions of ingots danced before their eyes, and stock rose rapidly. On the
12th of April, five days after the bill had become law, the directors
opened their books for a subscription of a million, at the rate of 300
pounds for every 100 pounds capital. Such was the concourse of persons, of
all ranks, that this first subscription was found to amount to above two
millions of original stock. It was to be paid at five payments, of 60
pounds each for every 100 pounds. In a few days the stock advanced to
three hundred and forty, and the subscriptions were sold for double the
price of the first payment. To raise the stock still higher, it was
declared, in a general court of directors, on the 21st of April, that the
midsummer dividend should be ten per cent., and that all subscriptions
should be entitled to the same. These resolutions answering the end
designed, the directors, to improve the infatuation of the monied men,
opened their books for a second subscription of a million, at four hundred
per cent. Such was the frantic eagerness of people of every class to
speculate in these funds, that in the course of a few hours no less than a
million and a half was subscribed at that rate.

In the mean time, innumerable joint-stock companies started up everywhere.
They soon received the name of Bubbles, the most appropriate that
imagination could devise. The populace are often most happy in the
nicknames they employ. None could be more apt than that of Bubbles. Some
of them lasted for a week, or a fortnight, and were no more heard of,
while others could not even live out that short span of existence. Every
evening produced new schemes, and every morning new projects. The highest
of the aristocracy were as eager in this hot pursuit of gain as the most
plodding jobber in Cornhill. The Prince of Wales became governor of one
company, and is said to have cleared 40,000 pounds by his speculations.
[Coxe’s Walpole, Correspondence between Mr. Secretary Craggs and Earl
Stanhope.] The Duke of Bridgewater started a scheme for the improvement of
London and Westminster, and the Duke of Chandos another. There were nearly
a hundred different projects, each more extravagant and deceptive than the
other. To use the words of the “Political State,” they were “set on foot
and promoted by crafty knaves, then pursued by multitudes of covetous
fools, and at last appeared to be, in effect, what their vulgar
appellation denoted them to be—bubbles and mere cheats.” It was
computed that near one million and a half sterling was won and lost by
these unwarrantable practices, to the impoverishment of many a fool, and
the enriching of many a rogue.

Some of these schemes were plausible enough, and, had they been undertaken
at a time when the public mind was unexcited, might have been pursued with
advantage to all concerned. But they were established merely with the view
of raising the shares in the market. The projectors took the first
opportunity of a rise to sell out, and next morning the scheme was at an
end. Maitland, in his History of London, gravely informs us, that one of
the projects which received great encouragement, was for the establishment
of a company “to make deal-boards out of saw-dust.” This is, no doubt,
intended as a joke; but there is abundance of evidence to show that dozens
of schemes hardly a whir more reasonable, lived their little day, ruining
hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion—capital,
one million; another was “for encouraging the breed of horses in England,
and improving of glebe and church lands, and repairing and rebuilding
parsonage and vicarage houses.” Why the clergy, who were so mainly
interested in the latter clause, should have taken so much interest in the
first, is only to be explained on the supposition that the scheme was
projected by a knot of the foxhunting parsons, once so common in England.
The shares of this company were rapidly subscribed for. But the most
absurd and preposterous of all, and which showed, more completely than any
other, the utter madness of the people, was one, started by an unknown
adventurer, entitled “company for carrying on an undertaking of great
advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” Were not the fact stated by
scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that any
person could have been duped by such a project. The man of genius who
essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity, merely
stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million, in
five thousand shares of 100 pounds each, deposit 2 pounds per share. Each
subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to 100 pounds per annum
per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained, he did not
condescend to inform them at that time, but promised, that in a month full
particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining 98
pounds of the subscription. Next morning, at nine o’clock, this great man
opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he
shut up at three o’clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares
had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five
hours, the winner of 2,000 pounds. He was philosopher enough to be
contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the
Continent. He was never heard of again.

Well might Swift exclaim, comparing Change Alley to a gulf in the South
Sea,—

Another fraud that was very successful, was that of the “Globe Permits,”
as they were called. They were nothing more than square pieces of playing
cards, on which was the impression of a seal, in wax, bearing the sign of
the Globe Tavern, in the neighbourhood of Exchange Alley, with the
inscription of “Sail Cloth Permits.” The possessors enjoyed no other
advantage from them than permission to subscribe, at some future time, to
a new sail-cloth manufactory, projected by one who was then known to be a
man of fortune, but who was afterwards involved in the peculation and
punishment of the South Sea directors. These permits sold for as much as
sixty guineas in the Alley.

Persons of distinction, of both sexes, were deeply engaged in all these
bubbles, those of the male sex going to taverns and coffee-houses to meet
their brokers, and the ladies resorting for the same purpose to the shops
of milliners and haberdashers. But it did not follow that all these people
believed in the feasibility of the schemes to which they subscribed; it
was enough for their purpose that their shares would, by stock-jobbing
arts, be soon raised to a premium, when they got rid of them with all
expedition to the really credulous. So great was the confusion of the
crowd in the alley, that shares in the same bubble were known to have been
sold at the same instant ten per cent. higher at one end of the alley than
at the other. Sensible men beheld the extraordinary infatuation of the
people with sorrow and alarm. There were some, both in and out of
Parliament, who foresaw clearly the ruin that was impending. Mr. Walpole
did not cease his gloomy forebodings. His fears were shared by all the
thinking few, and impressed most forcibly upon the government. On the 11th
of June, the day the Parliament rose, the King published a proclamation,
declaring that all these unlawful projects should be deemed public
nuisances, and prosecuted accordingly, and forbidding any broker, under a
penalty of five hundred pounds, from buying or selling any shares in them.
Notwithstanding this proclamation, roguish speculators still carried them
on, and the deluded people still encouraged them. On the 12th of July, an
order of the Lords Justices assembled in privy council was published,
dismissing all the petitions that had been presented for patents and
charters, and dissolving all the bubble companies. The following copy of
their lordships’ order, containing a list of all these nefarious projects,
will not be deemed uninteresting at the present day, when there is but too
much tendency in the public mind to indulge in similar practices:—

“At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 12th day of July, 1720. Present,
their Excellencies the Lords Justices in Council.

“Their Excellencies, the Lords Justices in council, taking into
consideration the many inconveniences arising to the public from several
projects set on foot for raising of joint stock for various purposes, and
that a great many of his Majesty’s subjects have been drawn in to part
with their money on pretence of assurances that their petitions for
patents and charters, to enable them to carry on the same, would be
granted: to prevent such impositions, their Excellencies, this day,
ordered the said several petitions, together with such reports from the
Board of Trade, and from his Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor General, as
had been obtained thereon, to be laid before them, and after mature
consideration thereof, were pleased, by advice of his Majesty’s Privy
Council, to order that the said petitions be dismissed, which are as
follow:—

“1. Petition of several persons, praying letters patent for carrying on a
fishing trade, by the name of the Grand Fishery of Great Britain.

“2. Petition of the Company of the Royal Fishery of England, praying
letters patent for such further powers as will effectually contribute to
carry on the said fishery.

“3. Petition of George James, on behalf of himself and divers persons of
distinction concerned in a national fishery; praying letters patent of
incorporation to enable them to carry on the same.

“4. Petition of several merchants, traders, and others, whose names are
thereunto subscribed, praying to be incorporated for reviving and carrying
on a whale fishery to Greenland and elsewhere.

“5. Petition of Sir John Lambert, and others thereto subscribing, on
behalf of themselves and a great number of merchants, praying to be
incorporated for carrying on a Greenland trade, and particularly a whale
fishery in Davis’s Straits.

“6. Another petition for a Greenland trade.

“7. Petition of several merchants, gentlemen, and citizens, praying to be
incorporated, for buying and building of ships to let or freight.

“8. Petition of Samuel Antrim and others, praying for letters patent for
sowing hemp and flax.

“9. Petition of several merchants, masters of ships, sail-makers, and
manufacturers of sail-cloth, praying a charter of incorporation, to enable
them to carry on and promote the said manufactory by a joint stock.

“10. Petition of Thomas Boyd, and several hundred merchants, owners and
masters of ships, sailmakers, weavers, and other traders, praying a
charter of incorporation, empowering them to borrow money for purchasing
lands, in order to the manufacturing sail-cloth and fine Holland.

“11. Petition on behalf of several persons interested in a patent granted
by the late King William and Queen Mary, for the making of linen and
sail-cloth, praying that no charter may be granted to any persons
whatsoever for making sail-cloth, but that the privilege now enjoyed by
them may be confirmed, and likewise an additional power to carry on the
cotton and cotton-silk manufactures.

“12. Petition of several citizens, merchants, and traders in London, and
others, subscribers to a British stock, for a general insurance from fire
in any part of England, praying to be incorporated for carrying on the
said undertaking.

“13. Petition of several of his Majesty’s loyal subjects of the city of
London, and other parts of Great Britain, praying to be incorporated, for
carrying on a general insurance from losses by fire within the kingdom of
England.

“14. Petition of Thomas Burges, and others his Majesty’s subjects thereto
subscribing, in behalf of themselves and others, subscribers to a fund of
1,200,000 pounds, for carrying on a trade to his Majesty’s German
dominions, praying to be incorporated, by the name of the Harburg Company.

“15. Petition of Edward Jones, a dealer in timber, on behalf of himself
and others, praying to be incorporated for the importation of timber from
Germany.

“16. Petition of several merchants of London, praying a charter of
incorporation for carrying on a salt-work.

“17. Petition of Captain Macphedris, of London, merchant, on behalf of
himself and several merchants, clothiers, hatters, dyers, and other
traders, praying a charter of incorporation, empowering them to raise a
sufficient sum of money to purchase lands for planting and rearing a wood
called madder, for the use of dyers.

“18. Petition of Joseph Galendo, of London, snuff-maker, praying a patent
for his invention to prepare and cure Virginia tobacco for snuff in
Virginia, and making it into the same in all his Majesty’s dominions.”

LIST OF BUBBLES.

The following Bubble Companies were by the same order declared to be
illegal, and abolished accordingly:—

1. For the importation of Swedish iron.

2. For supplying London with sea-coal. Capital, three millions.

3. For building and rebuilding houses throughout all England. Capital,
three millions.

4. For making of muslin.

5. For carrying on and improving the British alum works.

6. For effectually settling the island of Blanco and Sal Tartagus.

7. For supplying the town of Deal with fresh water.

8. For the importation of Flanders lace.

9. For improvement of lands in Great Britain. Capital, four millions.

10. For encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe
and church lands, and for repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage
houses.

11. For making of iron and steel in Great Britain.

12. For improving the land in the county of Flint. Capital, one million.

13. For purchasing lands to build on. Capital, two millions.

14. For trading in hair.

15. For erecting salt-works in Holy Island. Capital, two millions.

16. For buying and selling estates, and lending money on mortgage.

17. For carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know
what it is.

18. For paving the streets of London. Capital, two millions.

19. For furnishing funerals to any part of Great Britain.

20. For buying and selling lands and lending money at interest. Capital,
five millions.

21. For carrying on the Royal Fishery of Great Britain. Capital, ten
millions.

22. For assuring of seamen’s wages.

23. For erecting loan-offices for the assistance and encouragement of the
industrious. Capital, two millions.

24. For purchasing and improving leasable lands. Capital, four millions.

25. For importing pitch and tar, and other naval stores, from North
Britain and America.

26. For the clothing, felt, and pantile trade.

27. For purchasing and improving a manor and royalty in Essex.

28. For insuring of horses. Capital, two millions.

29. For exporting the woollen manufacture, and importing copper, brass,
and iron. Capital, four millions.

30. For a grand dispensary. Capital, three millions.

31. For erecting mills and purchasing lead mines. Capital, two millions.

32. For improving the art of making soap.

33. For a settlement on the island of Santa Cruz.

34. For sinking pits and smelting lead ore in Derbyshire.

35. For making glass bottles and other glass.

36. For a wheel for perpetual motion. Capital, one million.

37. For improving of gardens.

38. For insuring and increasing children’s fortunes.

39. For entering and loading goods at the custom-house, and for
negotiating business for merchants.

40. For carrying on a woollen manufacture in the north of England.

41. For importing walnut-trees from Virginia. Capital, two millions.

42. For making Manchester stuffs of thread and cotton.

43. For making Joppa and Castile soap.

44. For improving the wrought-iron and steel manufactures of this kingdom.
Capital, four millions.

45. For dealing in lace, Hollands, cambrics, lawns, &c. Capital, two
millions.

46. For trading in and improving certain commodities of the produce of
this kingdom, &c. Capital, three millions.

47. For supplying the London markets with cattle.

48. For making looking-glasses, coach glasses, &c. Capital, two
millions.

49. For working the tin and lead mines in Cornwall and Derbyshire.

50. For making rape-oil.

51. For importing beaver fur. Capital, two millions.

52. For making pasteboard and packing-paper.

53. For importing of oils and other materials used in the woollen
manufacture.

54. For improving and increasing the silk manufactures.

55. For lending money on stock, annuities, tallies, &c.

56. For paying pensions to widows and others, at a small discount.
Capital, two millions.

57. For improving malt liquors. Capital, four millions.

58. For a grand American fishery.

59. For purchasing and improving the fenny lands in Lincolnshire. Capital,
two millions.

60. For improving the paper manufacture of Great Britain.

61. The Bottomry Company.

62. For drying malt by hot air.

63. For carrying on a trade in the river Oronooko.

64. For the more effectual making of baize, in Colchester and other parts
of Great Britain.

65. For buying of naval stores, supplying the victualling, and paying the
wages of the workmen.

66. For employing poor artificers, and furnishing merchants and others
with watches.

67. For improvement of tillage and the breed of cattle.

68. Another for the improvement of our breed of horses.

69. Another for a horse-insurance.

70. For carrying on the corn trade of Great Britain.

71. For insuring to all masters and mistresses the losses they may sustain
by servants. Capital, three millions.

72. For erecting houses or hospitals, for taking in and maintaining
illegitimate children. Capital, two millions.

73. For bleaching coarse sugars, without the use of fire or loss of
substance.

74. For building turnpikes and wharfs in Great Britain.

75. For insuring from thefts and robberies.

76. For extracting silver from lead.

77. For making China and Delft ware. Capital, one million.

78. For importing tobacco, and exporting it again to Sweden and the north
of Europe. Capital, four millions.

79. For making iron with pit coal.

80. For furnishing the cities of London and Westminster with hay and
straw. Capital, three millions.

81. For a sail and packing cloth manufactory in Ireland.

82. For taking up ballast.

83. For buying and fitting out ships to suppress pirates.

84. For the importation of timber from Wales. Capital, two millions.

85. For rock-salt.

86. For the transmutation of quicksilver into a malleable fine metal.

Besides these bubbles, many others sprang up daily, in spite of the
condemnation of the Government and the ridicule of the still sane portion
of the public. The print-shops teemed with caricatures, and the newspapers
with epigrams and satires, upon the prevalent folly. An ingenious
card-maker published a pack of South Sea playing-cards, which are now
extremely rare, each card containing, besides the usual figures, of a very
small size, in one corner, a caricature of a bubble company, with
appropriate verses underneath. One of the most famous bubbles was
“Puckle’s Machine Company,” for discharging round and square cannon-balls
and bullets, and making a total revolution in the art of war. Its
pretensions to public favour were thus summed up, on the eight of spades:—

And in a similar style every card of the pack exposed some knavish scheme,
and ridiculed the persons who were its dupes. It was computed that the
total amount of the sums proposed for carrying on these projects was
upwards of three hundred millions sterling, a sum so immense that it
exceeded the value of all the lands in England at twenty years’ purchase.

It is time, however, to return to the great South Sea gulf, that swallowed
the fortunes of so many thousands of the avaricious and the credulous. On
the 29th of May, the stock had risen as high as five hundred, and about
two-thirds of the government annuitants had exchanged the securities of
the state for those of the South Sea Company. During the whole of the
month of May the stock continued to rise, and on the 28th it was quoted at
five hundred and fifty. In four days after this it took a prodigious leap,
rising suddenly from five hundred and fifty to eight hundred and ninety.
It was now the general opinion that the stock could rise no higher, and
many persons took that opportunity of selling out, with a view of
realising their profits. Many noblemen and persons in the train of the
King, and about to accompany him to Hanover, were also anxious to sell
out. So many sellers, and so few buyers, appeared in the Alley on the 3rd
of June, that the stock fell at once from eight hundred and ninety to six
hundred and forty. The directors were alarmed, and gave their agents
orders to buy. Their efforts succeeded. Towards evening confidence was
restored, and the stock advanced to seven hundred and fifty. It continued
at this price, with some slight fluctuation, until the company closed
their books on the 22nd of June.

It would be needless and uninteresting to detail the various arts employed
by the directors to keep up the price of stock. It will be sufficient to
state that it finally rose to one thousand per cent. It was quoted at this
price in the commencement of August. The bubble was then full-blown, and
began to quiver and shake, preparatory to its bursting.

Many of the government annuitants expressed dissatisfaction against the
directors. They accused them of partiality in making out the lists for
shares in each subscription. Further uneasiness was occasioned by its
being generally known that Sir John Blunt, the chairman, and some others,
had sold out. During the whole of the month of August the stock fell, and
on the 2nd of September it was quoted at seven hundred only.

The state of things now became alarming. To prevent, if possible, the
utter extinction of public confidence in their proceedings, the directors
summoned a general court of the whole corporation, to meet in Merchant
Tailors’ Hall, on the 8th of September. By nine o’clock in the morning,
the room was filled to suffocation; Cheapside was blocked up by a crowd
unable to gain admittance, and the greatest excitement prevailed. The
directors and their friends mustered in great numbers. Sir John Fellowes,
the sub-governor, was called to the chair. He acquainted the assembly with
the cause of their meeting, read to them the several resolutions of the
court of directors, and gave them an account of their proceedings; of the
taking in the redeemable and unredeemable funds, and of the subscriptions
in money. Mr. Secretary Craggs then made a short speech, wherein he
commended the conduct of the directors, and urged that nothing could more
effectually contribute to the bringing this scheme to perfection than
union among themselves. He concluded with a motion for thanking the court
of directors for their prudent and skilful management, and for desiring
them to proceed in such manner as they should think most proper for the
interest and advantage of the corporation. Mr. Hungerford, who had
rendered himself very conspicuous in the House of Commons for his zeal in
behalf of the South Sea Company, and who was shrewdly suspected to have
been a considerable gainer by knowing the right time to sell out, was very
magniloquent on this occasion. He said that he had seen the rise and fall,
the decay and resurrection of many communities of this nature, but that,
in his opinion, none had ever performed such wonderful things in so short
a time as the South Sea Company. They had done more than the crown, the
pulpit, or the bench could do. They had reconciled all parties in one
common interest; they had laid asleep, if not wholly extinguished, all the
domestic jars and animosities of the nation. By the rise of their stock,
monied men had vastly increased their fortunes; country-gentlemen had seen
the value of their lands doubled and trebled in their hands. They had at
the same time done good to the Church, not a few of the reverend clergy
having got great sums by the project. In short, they had enriched the
whole nation, and he hoped they had not forgotten themselves. There was
some hissing at the latter part of this speech, which for the extravagance
of its eulogy was not far removed from satire; but the directors and their
friends, and all the winners in the room, applauded vehemently. The Duke
of Portland spoke in a similar strain, and expressed his great wonder why
anybody should be dissatisfied: of course, he was a winner by his
speculations, and in a condition similar to that of the fat alderman in
Joe Miller’s Jests, who, whenever he had eaten a good dinner, folded his
hands upon his paunch, and expressed his doubts whether there could be a
hungry man in the world.

Several resolutions were passed at this meeting, but they had no effect
upon the public. Upon the very same evening the stock fell to six hundred
and forty, and on the morrow to five hundred and forty. Day after day it
continued to fall, until it was as low as four hundred. In a letter dated
September 13th, from Mr. Broderick, M.P. to Lord Chancellor Middleton, and
published in Coxo’s Walpole, the former says,—”Various are the
conjectures why the South Sea directors have suffered the cloud to break
so early. I made no doubt but they would do so when they found it to their
advantage. They have stretched credit so far beyond what it would bear,
that specie proves insufficient to support it. Their most considerable men
have drawn out, securing themselves by the losses of the deluded,
thoughtless numbers, whose understandings have been overruled by avarice
and the hope of making mountains out of mole-hills. Thousands of families
will be reduced to beggary. The consternation is inexpressible—the
rage beyond description, and the case altogether so desperate that I do
not see any plan or scheme so much as thought of for averting the blow, so
that I cannot pretend to guess what is next to be done.” Ten days
afterwards, the stock still falling, he writes,—”The Company have
yet come to no determination, for they are in such a wood that they know
not which way to turn. By several gentlemen lately come to town, I
perceive the very name of a South-Sea-man grows abominable in every
country. A great many goldsmiths are already run off, and more will daily.
I question whether one-third, nay, one-fourth, of them can stand it. From
the very beginning, I founded my judgment of the whole affair upon the
unquestionable maxim, that ten millions (which is more than our running
cash) could not circulate two hundred millions, beyond which our paper
credit extended. That, therefore, whenever that should become doubtful, be
the cause what it would, our noble state machine must inevitably fall to
the ground.”

On the 12th of September, at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Secretary
Craggs, several conferences were held between the directors of the South
Sea and the directors of the Bank. A report which was circulated, that the
latter had agreed to circulate six millions of the South Sea Company’s
bonds, caused the stock to rise to six hundred and seventy; but in the
afternoon, as soon as the report was known to be groundless, the stock
fell again to five hundred and eighty; the next day to five hundred and
seventy, and so gradually to four hundred. [Gay (the poet), in that
disastrous year, had a present from young Craggs of some South Sea stock,
and once supposed himself to be master of twenty thousand pounds. His
friends persuaded him to sell his share, but he dreamed of dignity and
splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his own fortune. He was then
importuned to sell as much as would purchase a hundred a year for life,
“which,” says Fenton, “will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder
of mutton every day.” This counsel was rejected; the profit and principal
were lost, and Gay sunk under the calamity so low that his life became in
danger.—Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.]

The ministry were seriously alarmed at the aspect of affairs. The
directors could not appear in the streets without being insulted;
dangerous riots were every moment apprehended. Despatches were sent off to
the King at Hanover, praying his immediate return. Mr. Walpole, who was
staying at his country-seat, was sent for, that he might employ his known
influence with the directors of the Bank of England to induce them to
accept the proposal made by the South Sea Company for circulating a number
of their bonds.

The Bank was very unwilling to mix itself up with the affairs of the
Company; it dreaded being involved in calamities which it could not
relieve, and received all overtures with visible reluctance. But the
universal voice of the nation called upon it to come to the rescue. Every
person of note in commercial politics was called in to advise in the
emergency. A rough draft of a contract drawn up by Mr. Walpole was
ultimately adopted as the basis of further negotiations, and the public
alarm abated a little.

On the following day, the 20th of September, a general court of the South
Sea Company was held at Merchant Tailors’ Hall, in which resolutions were
carried, empowering the directors to agree with the Bank of England, or
any other persons, to circulate the Company’s bonds, or make any other
agreement with the Bank which they should think proper. One of the
speakers, a Mr. Pulteney, said it was most surprising to see the
extraordinary panic which had seized upon the people. Men were running to
and fro in alarm and terror, their imaginations filled with some great
calamity, the form and dimensions of which nobody knew.

At a general court of the Bank of England held two days afterwards, the
governor informed them of the several meetings that had been held on the
affairs of the South Sea Company, adding that the directors had not yet
thought fit to come to any decision upon the matter. A resolution was then
proposed, and carried without a dissentient voice, empowering the
directors to agree with those of the South Sea to circulate their bonds,
to what sum, and upon what terms, and for what time, they might think
proper.

Thus both parties were at liberty to act as they might judge best for the
public interest. Books were opened at the Bank for a subscription of three
millions for the support of public credit, on the usual terms of 15 pounds
per cent. deposit, per cent. premium, and 5 pounds per cent. interest. So
great was the concourse of people in the early part of the morning, all
eagerly bringing their money, that it was thought the subscription would
be filled that day; but before noon, the tide turned. In spite of all that
could be done to prevent it, the South Sea Company’s stock fell rapidly.
Their bonds were in such discredit, that a run commenced upon the most
eminent goldsmiths and bankers, some of whom having lent out great sums
upon South Sea stock were obliged to shut up their shops and abscond. The
Sword-blade Company, who had hitherto been the chief cashiers of the South
Sea Company, stopped payment. This being looked upon as but the beginning
of evil, occasioned a great run upon the Bank, who were now obliged to pay
out money much faster than they had received it upon the subscription in
the morning. The day succeeding was a holiday (the 29th of September), and
the Bank had a little breathing time. They bore up against the storm; but
their former rivals, the South Sea Company, were wrecked upon it. Their
stock fell to one hundred and fifty, and gradually, after various
fluctuations, to one hundred and thirty-five.

The Bank, finding they were not able to restore public confidence, and
stem the tide of ruin, without running the risk of being swept away with
those they intended to save, declined to carry out the agreement into
which they had partially entered. They were under no obligation whatever
to continue; for the so called Bank contract was nothing more than the
rough draught of an agreement, in which blanks had been left for several
important particulars, and which contained no penalty for their secession.
“And thus,” to use the words of the Parliamentary History, “were seen, in
the space of eight months, the rise, progress, and fall of that mighty
fabric, which, being wound up by mysterious springs to a wonderful height,
had fixed the eyes and expectations of all Europe, but whose foundation,
being fraud, illusion, credulity, and infatuation, fell to the ground as
soon as the artful management of its directors was discovered.”

In the hey-day of its blood, during the progress of this dangerous
delusion, the manners of the nation became sensibly corrupted. The
Parliamentary inquiry, set on foot to discover the delinquents, disclosed
scenes of infamy, disgraceful alike to the morals of the offenders and the
intellects of the people among whom they had arisen. It is a deeply
interesting study to investigate all the evils that were the result.
Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity.
Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later. A celebrated writer
[Smollett.] is quite wrong, when he says, “that such an era as this is the
most unfavourable for a historian; that no reader of sentiment and
imagination can be entertained or interested by a detail of transactions
such as these, which admit of no warmth, no colouring, no embellishment; a
detail of which only serves to exhibit an inanimate picture of tasteless
vice and mean degeneracy.” On the contrary, and Smollett might have
discovered it, if he had been in the humour—the subject is capable
of inspiring as much interest as even a novelist can desire. Is there no
warmth in the despair of a plundered people?—no life and animation
in the picture which might be drawn of the woes of hundreds of
impoverished and ruined families? of the wealthy of yesterday become the
beggars of to-day? of the powerful and influential changed into exiles and
outcasts, and the voice of self-reproach and imprecation resounding from
every corner of the land? Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a
whole people shaking suddenly off the trammels of reason, and running wild
after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe that it is not
real, till, like a deluded hind running after an ignis fatuus, they are
plunged into a quagmire? But in this false spirit has history too often
been written. The intrigues of unworthy courtiers to gain the favour of
still more unworthy kings; or the records of murderous battles and sieges
have been dilated on, and told over and over again, with all the eloquence
of style and all the charms of fancy; while the circumstances which have
most deeply affected the morals and welfare of the people, have been
passed over with but slight notice as dry and dull, and capable of neither
warmth nor colouring.

During the progress of this famous bubble, England presented a singular
spectacle. The public mind was in a state of unwholesome fermentation. Men
were no longer satisfied with the slow but sure profits of cautious
industry. The hope of boundless wealth for the morrow made them heedless
and extravagant for to-day. A luxury, till then unheard-of, was
introduced, bringing in its train a corresponding laxity of morals. The
overbearing insolence of ignorant men, who had arisen to sudden wealth by
successful gambling, made men of true gentility of mind and manners, blush
that gold should have power to raise the unworthy in the scale of society.
The haughtiness of some of these “cyphering cits,” as they were termed by
Sir Richard Steele, was remembered against them in the day of their
adversity. In the Parliamentary inquiry, many of the directors suffered
more for their insolence than for their peculation. One of them, who, in
the full-blown pride of an ignorant rich man, had said that he would feed
his horse upon gold, was reduced almost to bread and water for himself;
every haughty look, every overbearing speech, was set down, and repaid
them a hundredfold in poverty and humiliation.

The state of matters all over the country was so alarming, that George I
shortened his intended stay in Hanover, and returned in all haste to
England. He arrived on the 11th of November, and Parliament was summoned
to meet on the 8th of December. In the mean time, public meetings were
held in every considerable town of the empire, at which petitions were
adopted, praying the vengeance of the Legislature upon the South Sea
directors, who, by their fraudulent practices, had brought the nation to
the brink of ruin. Nobody seemed to imagine that the nation itself was as
culpable as the South Sea Company. Nobody blamed the credulity and avarice
of the people,—the degrading lust of gain, which had swallowed up
every nobler quality in the national character, or the infatuation which
had made the multitude run their heads with such frantic eagerness into
the net held out for them by scheming projectors. These things were never
mentioned. The people were a simple, honest, hard-working people, ruined
by a gang of robbers, who were to be hanged, drawn, and quartered without
mercy.

This was the almost unanimous feeling of the country. The two Houses of
Parliament were not more reasonable. Before the guilt of the South Sea
directors was known, punishment was the only cry. The King, in his speech
from the throne, expressed his hope that they would remember that all
their prudence, temper, and resolution were necessary to find out and
apply the proper remedy for their misfortunes. In the debate on the answer
to the address, several speakers indulged in the most violent invectives
against the directors of the South Sea project. The Lord Molesworth was
particularly vehement. “It had been said by some, that there was no law to
punish the directors of the South Sea Company, who were justly looked upon
as the authors of the present misfortunes of the state. In his opinion
they ought, upon this occasion, to follow the example of the ancient
Romans, who, having no law against parricide, because their legislators
supposed no son could be so unnaturally wicked as to embrue his hands in
his father’s blood, made a law to punish this heinous crime as soon as it
was committed. They adjudged the guilty wretch to be sown in a sack, and
thrown alive into the Tyber. He looked upon the contrivers and executors
of the villanous South Sea scheme as the parricides of their country, and
should be satisfied to see them tied in like manner in sacks, and thrown
into the Thames.” Other members spoke with as much want of temper and
discretion. Mr. Walpole was more moderate. He recommended that their first
care should be to restore public credit. “If the city of London were on
fire, all wise men would aid in extinguishing the flames, and preventing
the spread of the conflagration before they inquired after the
incendiaries. Public credit had received a dangerous wound, and lay
bleeding, and they ought to apply a speedy remedy to it. It was time
enough to punish the assassin afterwards.” On the 9th of December an
address, in answer to his Majesty’s speech, was agreed upon, after an
amendment, which was carried without a division, that words should be
added expressive of the determination of the House not only to seek a
remedy for the national distresses, but to punish the authors of them.

The inquiry proceeded rapidly. The directors were ordered to lay before
the House a full account of all their proceedings. Resolutions were passed
to the effect that the calamity was mainly owing to the vile arts of
stockjobbers, and that nothing could tend more to the re-establishment of
public credit than a law to prevent this infamous practice. Mr. Walpole
then rose, and said, that “as he had previously hinted, he had spent some
time upon a scheme for restoring public credit, but that, the execution of
it depending upon a position which had been laid down as fundamental, he
thought it proper, before he opened out his scheme, to be informed whether
he might rely upon that foundation. It was, whether the subscription of
public debts and encumbrances, money subscriptions, and other contracts,
made with the South Sea Company should remain in the present state?” This
question occasioned an animated debate. It was finally agreed, by a
majority of 259 against 117, that all these contracts should remain in
their present state, unless altered for the relief of the proprietors by a
general court of the South Sea Company, or set aside by due course of law.
On the following day Mr. Walpole laid before a committee of the whole
House his scheme for the restoration of public credit, which was, in
substance, to ingraft nine millions of South Sea stock into the Bank of
England, and the same sum into the East India Company, upon certain
conditions. The plan was favourably received by the House. After some few
objections, it was ordered that proposals should be received from the two
great corporations. They were both unwilling to lend their aid, and the
plan met with a warm but fruitless opposition at the general courts
summoned for the purpose of deliberating upon it. They, however,
ultimately agreed upon the terms on which they would consent to circulate
the South Sea bonds, and their report, being presented to the committee, a
bill was brought in, under the superintendence of Mr. Walpole, and safely
carried through both Houses of Parliament.

A bill was at the same time brought in, for restraining the South Sea
directors, governor, sub-governor, treasurer, cashier, and clerks from
leaving the kingdom for a twelvemonth, and for discovering their estates
and effects, and preventing them from transporting or alienating the same.
All the most influential members of the House supported the bill. Mr.
Shippen, seeing Mr. Secretary Craggs in his place, and believing the
injurious rumours that were afloat of that minister’s conduct in the South
Sea business, determined to touch him to the quick. He said, he was glad
to see a British House of Commons resuming its pristine vigour and spirit,
and acting with so much unanimity for the public good. It was necessary to
secure the persons and estates of the South Sea directors and their
officers; “but,” he added, looking fixedly at Mr. Craggs as he spoke,
“there were other men in high station, whom, in time, he would not be
afraid to name, who were no less guilty than the directors.” Mr. Craggs
arose in great wrath, and said, that if the innuendo were directed against
him, he was ready to give satisfaction to any man who questioned him,
either in the House or out of it. Loud cries of order immediately arose on
every side. In the midst of the uproar Lord Molesworth got up, and
expressed his wonder at the boldness of Mr. Craggs in challenging the
whole House of Commons. He, Lord Molesworth, though somewhat old, past
sixty, would answer Mr. Craggs whatever he had to say in the House, and he
trusted there were plenty of young men beside him, who would not be afraid
to look Mr. Craggs in the face, out of the House. The cries of order again
resounded from every side; the members arose simultaneously; everybody
seemed to be vociferating at once. The Speaker in vain called order. The
confusion lasted several minutes, during which Lord Molesworth and Mr.
Craggs were almost the only members who kept their seats. At last the call
for Mr. Craggs became so violent that he thought proper to submit to the
universal feeling of the House, and explain his unparliamentary
expression. He said, that by giving satisfaction to the impugners of his
conduct in that House, he did not mean that he would fight, but that he
would explain his conduct. Here the matter ended, and the House proceeded
to debate in what manner they should conduct their inquiry into the
affairs of the South Sea Company, whether in a grand or a select
committee. Ultimately, a Secret Committee of thirteen was appointed, with
power to send for persons, papers, and records.

The Lords were as zealous and as hasty as the Commons. The Bishop of
Rochester said the scheme had been like a pestilence. The Duke of Wharton
said the House ought to show no respect of persons; that, for his part, he
would give up the dearest friend he had, if he had been engaged in the
project. The nation had been plundered in a most shameful and flagrant
manner, and he would go as far as anybody in the punishment of the
offenders. Lord Stanhope said, that every farthing possessed by the
criminals, whether directors or not directors, ought to be confiscated, to
make good the public losses.

During all this time the public excitement was extreme. We learn, front
Coxe’s Walpole, that the very name of a South Sea director was thought to
be synonymous with every species of fraud and villany. Petitions from
counties, cities, and boroughs, in all parts of the kingdom, were
presented, crying for the justice due to an injured nation and the
punishment of the villanous peculators. Those moderate men, who would not
go to extreme lengths, even in the punishment of the guilty, were accused
of being accomplices, were exposed to repeated insults and virulent
invectives, and devoted, both in anonymous letters and public writings, to
the speedy vengeance of an injured people. The accusations against Mr.
Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Craggs, another member of
the ministry, were so loud, that the House of Lords resolved to proceed at
once into the investigation concerning them. It was ordered, on the 21st
of January, that all brokers concerned in the South Sea scheme should lay
before the House an account of the stock or subscriptions bought or sold
by them for any of the officers of the Treasury or Exchequer, or in trust
for any of them, since Michaelmas 1719. When this account was delivered,
it appeared that large quantities of stock had been transferred to the use
of Mr. Aislabie. Five of the South Sea directors, including Mr. Edward
Gibbon, the grandfather of the celebrated historian, were ordered into the
custody of the black rod. Upon a motion made by Earl Stanhope, it was
unanimously resolved, that the taking in or giving credit for stock
without a valuable consideration actually paid or sufficiently secured; or
the purchasing stock by any director or agent of the South Sea Company,
for the use or benefit of any member of the administration, or any member
of either House of Parliament, during such time as the South Sea Bill was
yet pending in Parliament, was a notorious and dangerous corruption.
Another resolution was passed a few days afterwards, to the effect that
several of the directors and officers of the Company having, in a
clandestine manner, sold their own stock to the Company, had been guilty
of a notorious fraud and breach of trust, and had thereby mainly caused
the unhappy turn of affairs that had so much affected public credit. Mr.
Aislabie resigned his office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and absented
himself from Parliament until the formal inquiry into his individual guilt
was brought under the consideration of the Legislature.

In the mean time, Knight, the treasurer of the Company, and who was
intrusted with all the dangerous secrets of the dishonest directors,
packed up his books and documents, and made his escape from the country.
He embarked in disguise, in a small boat on the river, and proceeding to a
vessel hired for the purpose, was safely conveyed to Calais. The Committee
of Secrecy informed the House of the circumstance, when it was resolved
unanimously that two addresses should be presented to the King; the first
praying that he would issue a proclamation, offering a reward for the
apprehension of Knight; and the second, that he would give immediate
orders to stop the ports, and to take effectual care of the coasts, to
prevent the said Knight, or any other officers of the South Sea Company,
from escaping out of the kingdom. The ink was hardly dry upon these
addresses before they were carried to the King by Mr. Methuen, deputed by
the House for that purpose. The same evening a royal proclamation was
issued, offering a reward of two thousand pounds for the apprehension of
Knight. The Commons ordered the doors of the House to be locked, and the
keys to be placed upon the table. General Ross, one of the members of the
Committee of Secrecy, acquainted them that they had already discovered a
train of the deepest villany and fraud that Hell had ever contrived to
ruin a nation, which in due time they would lay before the House. In the
mean time, in order to a further discovery, the Committee thought it
highly necessary to secure the persons of some of the directors and
principal South Sea officers, and to seize their papers. A motion to this
effect having been made, was carried unanimously. Sir Robert Chaplin, Sir
Theodore Janssen, Mr. Sawbridge, and Mr. F. Eyles, members of the House,
and directors of the South Sea Company, were summoned to appear in their
places, and answer for their corrupt practices. Sir Theodore Janssen and
Mr. Sawbridge answered to their names, and endeavoured to exculpate
themselves. The House heard them patiently, and then ordered them to
withdraw. A motion was then made, and carried nemine contradicente, that
they had been guilty of a notorious breach of trust—had occasioned
much loss to great numbers of his Majesty’s subjects, and had highly
prejudiced the public credit. It was then ordered that, for their offence,
they should be expelled the House, and taken into the custody of the
sergeant-at-arms. Sir Robert Chaplin and Mr. Eyles, attending in their
places four days afterwards, were also expelled the House. It was resolved
at the same time to address the King, to give directions to his ministers
at foreign courts to make application for Knight, that he might be
delivered up to the English authorities, in ease he took refuge in any of
their dominions. The King at once agreed, and messengers were despatched
to all parts of the Continent the same night.

Among the directors taken into custody, was Sir John Blunt, the man whom
popular opinion has generally accused of having been the original author
and father of the scheme. This man, we are informed by Pope, in his
epistle to Allen, Lord Bathurst, was a dissenter, of a most religious
deportment, and professed to be a great believer. He constantly declaimed
against the luxury and corruption of the age, the partiality of
parliaments, and the misery of party spirit. He was particularly eloquent
against avarice in great and noble persons. He was originally a scrivener,
and afterwards became, not only a director, but the most active manager of
the South Sea Company. Whether it was during his career in this capacity
that he first began to declaim against the avarice of the great, we are
not informed. He certainly must have seen enough of it to justify his
severest anathema; but if the preacher had himself been free from the vice
he condemned, his declamations would have had a better effect. He was
brought up in custody to the bar of the House of Lords, and underwent a
long examination. He refused to answer several important questions. He
said he had been examined already by a committee of the House of Commons,
and as he did not remember his answers, and might contradict himself, he
refused to answer before another tribunal. This declaration, in itself an
indirect proof of guilt, occasioned some commotion in the House. He was
again asked peremptorily whether he had ever sold any portion of the stock
to any member of the administration, or any member of either House of
Parliament, to facilitate the passing of the hill. He again declined to
answer. He was anxious, he said, to treat the House with all possible
respect, but he thought it hard to be compelled to accuse himself. After
several ineffectual attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to
withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and opponents of
the ministry. It was asserted that the administration were no strangers to
the convenient taciturnity of Sir John Blunt. The Duke of Wharton made a
reflection upon the Earl Stanhope, which the latter warmly resented. He
spoke under great excitement, and with such vehemence as to cause a sudden
determination of blood to the head. He felt himself so ill that he was
obliged to leave the House and retire to his chamber. He was cupped
immediately, and also let blood on the following morning, but with slight
relief. The fatal result was not anticipated. Towards evening he became
drowsy, and turning himself on his face, expired. The sudden death of this
statesman caused great grief to the nation. George I was exceedingly
affected, and shut himself up for some hours in his closet, inconsolable
for his loss.

Knight, the treasurer of the company, was apprehended at Tirlemont, near
Liege, by one of the secretaries of Mr. Leathes, the British resident at
Brussels, and lodged in the citadel of Antwerp. Repeated applications were
made to the court of Austria to deliver him up, but in vain. Knight threw
himself upon the protection of the states of Brabant, and demanded to be
tried in that country. It was a privilege granted to the states of Brabant
by one of the articles of the Joyeuse Entree, that every criminal
apprehended in that country should be tried in that country. The states
insisted on their privilege, and refused to deliver Knight to the British
authorities. The latter did not cease their solicitations; but in the mean
time, Knight escaped from the citadel.

On the 16th of February the Committee of Secrecy made their first report
to the House. They stated that their inquiry had been attended with
numerous difficulties and embarrassments; every one they had examined had
endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to defeat the ends of justice. In some
of the books produced before them, false and fictitious entries had been
made; in others, there were entries of money, with blanks for the name of
the stockholders. There were frequent erasures and alterations, and in
some of the books leaves were torn out. They also found that some books of
great importance had been destroyed altogether, and that some had been
taken away or secreted. At the very entrance into their inquiry, they had
observed that the matters referred to them were of great variety and
extent. Many persons had been intrusted with various parts in the
execution of the law, and under colour thereof had acted in an
unwarrantable manner, in disposing of the properties of many thousands of
persons, amounting to many millions of money. They discovered that, before
the South Sea Act was passed, there was an entry in the Company’s books of
the sum of 1,259,325 pounds, upon account of stock stated to have been
sold to the amount of 574,500 pounds. This stock was all fictitious, and
had been disposed of with a view to promote the passing of the bill. It
was noted as sold at various days, and at various prices, from 150 to 325
per cent. Being surprised to see so large an account disposed of, at a
time when the Company were not empowered to increase their capital, the
committee determined to investigate most carefully the whole transaction.
The governor, sub-governor, and several directors were brought before
them, and examined rigidly. They found that, at the time these entries
were made, the Company was not in possession of such a quantity of stock,
having in their own right only a small quantity, not exceeding thirty
thousand pounds at the utmost. Pursuing the inquiry, they found that this
amount of stock, was to be esteemed as taken in or holden by the Company,
for the benefit of the pretended purchasers, although no mutual agreement
was made for its delivery or acceptance at any certain time. No money was
paid down, nor any deposit or security whatever given to the Company by
the supposed purchasers; so that if the stock had fallen, as might have
been expected, had the act not passed, they would have sustained no loss.
If, on the contrary, the price of stock advanced (as it actually did by
the success of the scheme), the difference by the advanced price was to be
made good to them. Accordingly, after the passing of the act, the account
of stock was made up and adjusted with Mr. Knight, and the pretended
purchasers were paid the difference out of the Company’s cash. This
fictitious stock, which had been chiefly at the disposal of Sir John
Blunt, Mr. Gibbon, and Mr. Knight, was distributed among several members
of the government and their connexions, by way of bribe, to facilitate the
passing of the bill. To the Earl of Sunderland was assigned 50,000 pounds
of this stock; to the Duchess of Kendal 10,000 pounds; to the Countess of
Platen 10,000 pounds; to her two nieces 10,000 pounds; to Mr. Secretary
Craggs 30,000 pounds; to Mr. Charles Stanhope (one of the Secretaries of
the Treasury) 10,000 pounds; to the Swordblade Company 50,000 pounds. It
also appeared that Mr. Stanhope had received the enormous sum of 250,000
pounds as the difference in the price of some stock, through the hands of
Turner, Caswall, and Co., but that his name had been partly erased from
their books, and altered to Stangape. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had made profits still more abominable. He had an account with
the same firm, who were also South Sea directors, to the amount of 794,451
pounds. He had, besides, advised the Company to make their second
subscription one million and a half, instead of a million, by their own
authority, and without any warrant. The third subscription had been
conducted in a manner as disgraceful. Mr. Aislabie’s name was down for
70,000 pounds; Mr. Craggs, senior, for 659,000 pounds; the Earl of
Sunderland’s for 160,000 pounds; and Mr. Stanhope for 47,000 pounds. This
report was succeeded by six others, less important. At the end of the
last, the committee declared that the absence of Knight, who had been
principally intrusted, prevented them from carrying on their inquiries.

The first report was ordered to be printed, and taken into consideration
on the next day but one succeeding. After a very angry and animated
debate, a series of resolutions were agreed to, condemnatory of the
conduct of the directors, of the members of the Parliament and of the
administration concerned with them; and declaring that they ought, each
and all, to make satisfaction out of their own estates for the injury they
had done the public. Their practices were declared to be corrupt,
infamous, and dangerous; and a bill was ordered to be brought in for the
relief of the unhappy sufferers.

Mr. Charles Stanhope was the first person brought to account for his share
in these transactions. He urged in his defence that, for some years past,
he had lodged all the money he was possessed of in Mr. Knight’s hands, and
whatever stock Mr. Knight had taken in for him, he had paid a valuable
consideration for it. As to the stock that had been bought for him by
Turner, Caswall, and Co. he knew nothing about it. Whatever had been done
in that matter was done without his authority, and he could not be
responsible for it. Turner and Co. took the latter charge upon themselves,
but it was notorious to every unbiased and unprejudiced person that Mr.
Stanhope was a gainer of the 250,000 pounds which lay in the hands of that
firm to his credit. He was, however, acquitted by a majority of three
only. The greatest exertions were made to screen him. Lord Stanhope, the
son of the Earl of Chesterfield, went round to the wavering members, using
all the eloquence he was possessed of to induce them either to vote for
the acquittal or to absent themselves from the house. Many weak-headed
country-gentlemen were led astray by his persuasions, and the result was
as already stated. The acquittal caused the greatest discontent throughout
the country. Mobs of a menacing character assembled in different parts of
London; fears of riots were generally entertained, especially as the
examination of a still greater delinquent was expected by many to have a
similar termination. Mr. Aislabie, whose high office and deep
responsibilities should have kept him honest, even had native principle
been insufficient, was very justly regarded as perhaps the greatest
criminal of all. His case was entered into on the day succeeding the
acquittal of Mr. Starthope. Great excitement prevailed, and the lobbies
and avenues of the house were beset by crowds, impatient to know the
result. The debate lasted the whole day. Mr. Aislabie found few friends:
his guilt was so apparent and so heinous that nobody had courage to stand
up in his favour. It was finally resolved, without a dissentient voice,
that Mr. Aislabie had encouraged and promoted the destructive execution of
the South Sea scheme with a view to his own exorbitant profit, and had
combined with the directors in their pernicious practices to the ruin of
the public trade and credit of the kingdom: that he should for his
offences be ignominiously expelled from the House of Commons, and
committed a close prisoner to the Tower of London; that he should be
restrained from going out of the kingdom for a whole year, or till the end
of the next session of Parliament; and that he should make out a correct
account of all his estate, in order that it might be applied to the relief
of those who had suffered by his malpractices.

This verdict caused the greatest joy. Though it was delivered at half-past
twelve at night, it soon spread over the city. Several persons illuminated
their houses in token of their joy. On the following day, when Mr.
Aislabie was conveyed to the Tower, the mob assembled on Tower-hill with
the intention of hooting and pelting him. Not succeeding in this, they
kindled a large bonfire, and danced around it in the exuberance of their
delight. Several bonfires were made in other places; London presented the
appearance of a holiday, and people congratulated one another as if they
had just escaped from some great calamity. The rage upon the acquittal of
Mr. Stanhope had grown to such a height that none could tell where it
would have ended, had Mr. Aislabie met with the like indulgence.

To increase the public satisfaction, Sir George Caswall, of the firm of
Turner, Caswall, & Co. was expelled the House on the following day,
and ordered to refund the sum of 250,000 pounds.

That part of the report of the Committee of Secrecy which related to the
Earl of Sunderland was next taken into consideration. Every effort was
made to clear his Lordship from the imputation. As the case against him
rested chiefly on the evidence extorted from Sir John Blunt, great pains
were taken to make it appear that Sir John’s word was not to be believed,
especially in a matter affecting the honour of a peer and privy
councillor. All the friends of the ministry rallied around the Earl, it
being generally reported that a verdict of guilty against him would bring
a Tory ministry into power. He was eventually acquitted, by a majority of
233 against 172; but the country was convinced of his guilt. The greatest
indignation was everywhere expressed, and menacing mobs again assembled in
London. Happily no disturbances took place.

This was the day on which Mr. Craggs, the elder, expired. The morrow had
been appointed for the consideration of his case. It was very generally
believed that he had poisoned himself. It appeared, however, that grief
for the loss of his son, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, who had
died five weeks previously of the small-pox, preyed much on his mind. For
this son, dearly beloved, he had been amassing vast heaps of riches: he
had been getting money, but not honestly; and he for whose sake he had
bartered his honour and sullied his fame, was now no more. The dread of
further exposure increased his trouble of mind, and ultimately brought on
an apoplectic fit, in which he expired. He left a fortune of a million and
a half, which was afterwards confiscated for the benefit of the sufferers
by the unhappy delusion he had been so mainly instrumental in raising.

One by one the case of every director of the Company was taken into
consideration. A sum amounting to two millions and fourteen thousand
pounds was confiscated from their estates towards repairing the mischief
they had done, each man being allowed a certain residue, in proportion to
his conduct and circumstances, with which he might begin the world anew.
Sir John Blunt was only allowed 5,000 pounds out of his fortune of upwards
of 183,000 pounds; Sir John Fellows was allowed 10,000 pounds out of
243,000 pounds; Sir Theodore Janssen, 50,000 pounds out of 243,000 pounds;
Mr. Edward Gibbon, 10,000 pounds out of 106,000 pounds.; Sir John Lambert,
5000 pounds out of 72,000 pounds. Others, less deeply involved, were
treated with greater liberality. Gibbon, the historian, whose grandfather
was the Mr. Edward Gibbon so severely mulcted, has given, in the Memoirs
of his Life and Writings, an interesting account of the proceedings in
Parliament at this time. He owns that he is not an unprejudiced witness;
but, as all the writers from which it is possible to extract any notice of
the proceedings of these disastrous years, were prejudiced on the other
side, the statements of the great historian become of additional value. If
only on the principle of audi alteram partem, his opinion is entitled to
consideration. “In the year 1716,” he says, “my grandfather was elected
one of the directors of the South Sea Company, and his books exhibited the
proof that before his acceptance of that fatal office, he had acquired an
independent fortune of 60,000 pounds. But his fortune was overwhelmed in
the shipwreck of the year twenty, and the labours of thirty years were
blasted in a single day. Of the use or abuse of the South Sea scheme, of
the guilt or innocence of my grandfather and his brother directors, I am
neither a competent nor a disinterested judge. Yet the equity of modern
times must condemn the violent and arbitrary proceedings, which would have
disgraced the cause of justice, and rendered injustice still more odious.
No sooner had the nation awakened from its golden dream, than a popular,
and even a Parliamentary clamour, demanded its victims; but it was
acknowledged on all sides, that the directors, however guilty, could not
be touched by any known laws of the land. The intemperate notions of Lord
Molesworth were not literally acted on; but a bill of pains and penalties
was introduced—a retro-active statute, to punish the offences which
did not exist at the time they were committed. The Legislature restrained
the persons of the directors, imposed an exorbitant security for their
appearance, and marked their character with a previous note of ignominy.
They were compelled to deliver, upon oath, the strict value of their
estates, and were disabled from making any transfer or alienation of any
part of their property. Against a bill of pains and penalties, it is the
common right of every subject to be heard by his counsel at the bar. They
prayed to be heard. Their prayer was refused, and their oppressors, who
required no evidence, would listen to no defence. It had been at first
proposed, that one eighth of their respective estates should be allowed
for the future support of the directors; but it was speciously urged, that
in the various shades of opulence and guilt, such a proportion would be
too light for many, and for some might possibly be too heavy. The
character and conduct of each man were separately weighed; but, instead of
the calm solemnity of a judicial inquiry, the fortune and honour of
thirty-three Englishmen were made the topics of hasty conversation, the
sport of a lawless majority; and the basest member of the committee, by a
malicious word, or a silent vote, might indulge his general spleen or
personal animosity. Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult was
embittered by pleasantry. Allowances of 20 pounds or 1 shilling were
facetiously moved. A vague report that a director had formerly been
concerned in another project, by which some unknown persons had lost their
money, was admitted as a proof of his actual guilt. One man was ruined
because he had dropped a foolish speech, that his horses should feed upon
gold; another, because he was grown so proud, that one day, at the
Treasury, he had refused a civil answer to persons much above him. All
were condemned, absent and unheard, in arbitrary fines and forfeitures,
which swept away the greatest part of their substance. Such bold
oppression can scarcely be shielded by the omnipotence of Parliament. My
grandfather could not expect to be treated with more lenity than his
companions. His Tory principles and connexions rendered him obnoxious to
the ruling powers. His name was reported in a suspicious secret. His
well-known abilities could not plead the excuse of ignorance or error. In
the first proceedings against the South Sea directors, Mr. Gibbon was one
of the first taken into custody, and in the final sentence the measure of
his fine proclaimed him eminently guilty. The total estimate, which he
delivered on oath to the House of Commons, amounted to 106,543 pounds 5
shillings 6 pence, exclusive of antecedent settlements. Two different
allowances of 15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr.
Gibbon; but, on the question being put, it was carried without a division
for the smaller sum. On these ruins, with the skill and credit of which
Parliament had not been able to despoil him, my grandfather, at a mature
age, erected the edifice of a new fortune. The labours of sixteen years
were amply rewarded; and I have reason to believe that the second
structure was not much inferior to the first.”

The next consideration of the Legislature, after the punishment of the
directors, was to restore public credit. The scheme of Walpole had been
found insufficient, and had fallen into disrepute. A computation was made
of the whole capital stock of the South Sea Company at the end of the year
1720. It was found to amount to thirty-seven millions eight hundred
thousand pounds, of which the stock allotted to all the proprietors only
amounted to twenty-four millions five hundred thousand pounds. The
remainder of thirteen millions three hundred thousand pounds belonged to
the Company in their corporate capacity, and was the profit they had made
by the national delusion. Upwards of eight millions of this were taken
from the Company, and divided among the proprietors and subscribers
generally, making a dividend of about 33 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence per
cent. This was a great relief. It was further ordered, that such persons
as had borrowed money from the South Sea Company upon stock actually
transferred and pledged at the time of borrowing to or for the use of the
Company, should be free from all demands, upon payment of ten per cent. of
the sums so borrowed. They had lent about eleven millions in this manner,
at a time when prices were unnaturally raised; and they now received back
one million one hundred thousand, when prices had sunk to their ordinary
level.

But it was a long time before public credit was thoroughly restored.
Enterprise, like Icarus, had soared too high, and melted the wax of her
wings; like Icarus, she had fallen into a sea, and learned, while
floundering in its waves, that her proper element was the solid ground.
She has never since attempted so high a flight.

In times of great commercial prosperity there has been a tendency to
over-speculation on several occasions since then. The success of one
project generally produces others of a similar kind. Popular imitativeness
will always, in a trading nation, seize hold of such successes, and drag a
community too anxious for profits into an abyss from which extrication is
difficult. Bubble companies, of a kind similar to those engendered by the
South Sea project, lived their little day in the famous year of the panic,
1825. On that occasion, as in 1720, knavery gathered a rich harvest from
cupidity, but both suffered when the day of reckoning came. The schemes of
the year 1836 threatened, at one time, results as disastrous; but they
were happily averted before it was too late. The South Sea project thus
remains, and, it is to be hoped, always will remain, the greatest example
in British history, of the infatuation of the people for commercial
gambling. From the bitter experience of that period, posterity may learn
how dangerous it is to let speculation riot unrestrained, and to hope for
enormous profits from inadequate causes. Degrading as were the
circumstances, there is wisdom to be gained from the lesson which they
teach.

THE TULIPOMANIA.

The tulip,—so named, it is said, from a Turkish word, signifying a
turban,—was introduced into western Europe about the middle of the
sixteenth century. Conrad Gesner, who claims the merit of having brought
it into repute,—little dreaming of the extraordinary commotion it
was to make in the world,—says that he first saw it in the year
1559, in a garden at Augsburg, belonging to the learned Counsellor
Herwart, a man very famous in his day for his collection of rare exotics.
The bulbs were sent to this gentleman by a friend at Constantinople, where
the flower had long been a favourite. In the course of ten or eleven years
after this period, tulips were much sought after by the wealthy,
especially in Holland and Germany. Rich people at Amsterdam sent for the
bulbs direct to Constantinople, and paid the most extravagant prices for
them. The first roots planted in England were brought from Vienna in 1600.
Until the year 1634 the tulip annually increased in reputation, until it
was deemed a proof of bad taste in any man of fortune to be without a
collection of them. Many learned men, including Pompeius de Angelis and
the celebrated Lipsius of Leyden, the author of the treatise “De
Constantia,” were passionately fond of tulips. The rage for possessing
them soon caught the middle classes of society, and merchants and
shopkeepers, even of moderate means, began to vie with each other in the
rarity of these flowers and the preposterous prices they paid for them. A
trader at Harlaem was known to pay one-half of his fortune for a single
root—not with the design of selling it again at a profit, but to
keep in his own conservatory for the admiration of his acquaintance.

One would suppose that there must have been some great virtue in this
flower to have made it so valuable in the eyes of so prudent a people as
the Dutch; but it has neither the beauty nor the perfume of the rose—hardly
the beauty of the “sweet, sweet-pea;” neither is it as enduring as either.
Cowley, it is true, is loud in its praise. He says—

This, though not very poetical, is the description of a poet. Beckmann, in
his History of Inventions, paints it with more fidelity, and in prose more
pleasing than Cowley’s poetry. He says, “There are few plants which
acquire, through accident, weakness, or disease, so many variegations as
the tulip. When uncultivated, and in its natural state, it is almost of
one colour, has large leaves, and an extraordinarily long stem. When it
has been weakened by cultivation, it becomes more agreeable in the eyes of
the florist. The petals are then paler, smaller, and more diversified in
hue; and the leaves acquire a softer green colour. Thus this masterpiece
of culture, the more beautiful it turns, grows so much the weaker, so
that, with the greatest skill and most careful attention, it can scarcely
be transplanted, or even kept alive.”

Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a great
deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and ever-ailing child
better than her more healthy offspring. Upon the same principle we must
account for the unmerited encomia lavished upon these fragile blossoms. In
1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess them was so great that the
ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even
to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade. As the mania increased,
prices augmented, until, in the year 1635, many persons were known to
invest a fortune of 100,000 florins in the purchase of forty roots. It
then became necessary to sell them by their weight in perits, a small
weight less than a grain. A tulip of the species called Admiral Liefken,
weighing 400 perits, was worth 4400 florins; an Admiral Von der Eyk,
weighing 446 perits, was worth 1260 florins; a shilder of 106 perits was
worth 1615 florins; a viceroy of 400 perits, 3000 florins, and, most
precious of all, a Semper Augustus, weighing 200 perits, was thought to be
very cheap at 5500 florins. The latter was much sought after, and even an
inferior bulb might command a price of 2000 florins. It is related that,
at one time, early in 1636, there were only two roots of this description
to be had in all Holland, and those not of the best. One was in the
possession of a dealer in Amsterdam, and the other in Harlaem. So anxious
were the speculators to obtain them that one person offered the fee-simple
of twelve acres of building ground for the Harlaem tulip. That of
Amsterdam was bought for 4600 florins, a new carriage, two grey horses,
and a complete suit of harness. Munting, an industrious author of that
day, who wrote a folio volume of one thousand pages upon the tulipomania,
has preserved the following list of the various articles, and their value,
which were delivered for one single root of the rare species called the
viceroy:—

People who had been absent from Holland, and whose chance it was to return
when this folly was at its maximum, were sometimes led into awkward
dilemmas by their ignorance. There is an amusing instance of the kind
related in Blainville’s Travels. A wealthy merchant, who prided himself
not a little on his rare tulips, received upon one occasion a very
valuable consignment of merchandise from the Levant. Intelligence of its
arrival was brought him by a sailor, who presented himself for that
purpose at the counting-house, among bales of goods of every description.
The merchant, to reward him for his news, munificently made him a present
of a fine red herring for his breakfast. The sailor had, it appears, a
great partiality for onions, and seeing a bulb very like an onion lying
upon the counter of this liberal trader, and thinking it, no doubt, very
much out of its place among silks and velvets, he slily seized an
opportunity and slipped it into his pocket, as a relish for his herring.
He got clear off with his prize, and proceeded to the quay to eat his
breakfast. Hardly was his back turned when the merchant missed his
valuable Semper Augustus, worth three thousand florins, or about 280
pounds sterling. The whole establishment was instantly in an uproar;
search was everywhere made for the precious root, but it was not to be
found. Great was the merchant’s distress of mind. The search was renewed,
but again without success. At last some one thought of the sailor.

The unhappy merchant sprang into the street at the bare suggestion. His
alarmed household followed him. The sailor, simple soul! had not thought
of concealment. He was found quietly sitting on a coil of ropes,
masticating the last morsel of his “onion.” Little did he dream that he
had been eating a breakfast whose cost might have regaled a whole ship’s
crew for a twelvemonth; or, as the plundered merchant himself expressed
it, “might have sumptuously feasted the Prince of Orange and the whole
court of the Stadtholder.” Anthony caused pearls to be dissolved in wine
to drink the health of Cleopatra; Sir Richard Whittington was as foolishly
magnificent in an entertainment to King Henry V; and Sir Thomas Gresham
drank a diamond, dissolved in wine, to the health of Queen Elizabeth, when
she opened the Royal Exchange: but the breakfast of this roguish Dutchman
was as splendid as either. He had an advantage, too, over his wasteful
predecessors: their gems did not improve the taste or the wholesomeness of
their wine, while his tulip was quite delicious with his red herring. The
most unfortunate part of the business for him was, that he remained in
prison for some months, on a charge of felony, preferred against him by
the merchant.

Another story is told of an English traveller, which is scarcely less
ludicrous. This gentleman, an amateur botanist, happened to see a
tulip-root lying in the conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman. Being ignorant
of its quality, he took out his penknife, and peeled off its coats, with
the view of making experiments upon it. When it was by this means reduced
to half its original size, he cut it into two equal sections, making all
the time many learned remarks on the singular appearances of the unknown
bulb. Suddenly the owner pounced upon him, and, with fury in his eyes,
asked him if he knew what he had been doing? “Peeling a most extraordinary
onion,” replied the philosopher. “Hundert tausend duyvel,” said the
Dutchman; “it’s an Admiral Van der E. yck.” “Thank you,” replied the
traveller, taking out his note-book to make a memorandum of the same; “are
these admirals common in your country?” “Death and the devil,” said the
Dutchman, seizing the astonished man of science by the collar; “come
before the syndic, and you shall see.” In spite of his remonstrances, the
traveller was led through the streets, followed by a mob of persons. When
brought into the presence of the magistrate, he learned, to his
consternation, that the root upon which he had been experimentalizing was
worth four thousand florins; and, notwithstanding all he could urge in
extenuation, he was lodged in prison until he found securities for the
payment of this sum.

The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year
1636, that regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock
Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and
other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time,
apparent. The stockjobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt
largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to
employ, to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all these
gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and everybody gained. The
tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks, and
made large profits by buying when prices fell, and selling out when they
rose. Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly
out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip
marts, like flies around a honeypot. Every one imagined that the passion
for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of
the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for
them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the
Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland.
Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even
chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips. People of all
grades converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers.
Houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices, or
assigned in payment of bargains made at the tulip-mart. Foreigners became
smitten with the same frenzy, and money poured into Holland from all
directions. The prices of the necessaries of life rose again by degrees;
houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every sort, rose
in value with them, and for some months Holland seemed the very
antechamber of Plutus. The operations of the trade became so extensive and
so intricate, that it was found necessary to draw up a code of laws for
the guidance of the dealers. Notaries and clerks were also appointed, who
devoted themselves exclusively to the interests of the trade. The
designation of public notary was hardly known in some towns, that of tulip
notary usurping its place. In the smaller towns, where there was no
exchange, the principal tavern was usually selected as the “showplace,”
where high and low traded in tulips, and confirmed their bargains over
sumptuous entertainments. These dinners were sometimes attended by two or
three hundred persons, and large vases of tulips, in full bloom, were
placed at regular intervals upon the tables and sideboards, for their
gratification during the repast.

At last, however, the more prudent began to see that this folly could not
last for ever. Rich people no longer bought the flowers to keep them in
their gardens, but to sell them again at cent. per cent. profit. It was
seen that somebody must lose fearfully in the end. As this conviction
spread, prices fell, and never rose again. Confidence was destroyed, and a
universal panic seized upon the dealers. A had agreed to purchase ten
Sempers Augustines from B, at four thousand florins each, at six weeks
after the signing of the contract. B was ready with the flowers at the
appointed time; but the price had fallen to three or four hundred florins,
and A refused either to pay the difference or receive the tulips.
Defaulters were announced day after day in all the towns of Holland.
Hundreds who, a few months previously, had begun to doubt that there was
such a thing as poverty in the land, suddenly found themselves the
possessors of a few bulbs, which nobody would buy, even though they
offered them at one quarter of the sums they had paid for them. The cry of
distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his neighbour. The few
who had contrived to enrich themselves hid their wealth from the knowledge
of their fellow-citizens, and invested it in the English or other funds.
Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life,
were cast back into their original obscurity. Substantial merchants were
reduced almost to beggary, and many a representative of a noble line saw
the fortunes of his house ruined beyond redemption.

When the first alarm subsided, the tulip-holders in the several towns held
public meetings to devise what measures were best to be taken to restore
public credit. It was generally agreed, that deputies should be sent from
all parts to Amsterdam, to consult with the government upon some remedy
for the evil. The Government at first refused to interfere, but advised
the tulip-holders to agree to some plan among themselves. Several meetings
were held for this purpose; but no measure could be devised likely to give
satisfaction to the deluded people, or repair even a slight portion of the
mischief that had been done. The language of complaint and reproach was in
everybody’s mouth, and all the meetings were of the most stormy character.
At last, however, after much bickering and ill-will, it was agreed, at
Amsterdam, by the assembled deputies, that all contracts made in the
height of the mania, or prior to the month of November 1636, should be
declared null and void, and that, in those made after that date,
purchasers should be freed from their engagements, on paying ten per cent.
to the vendor. This decision gave no satisfaction. The vendors who had
their tulips on hand were, of course, discontented, and those who had
pledged themselves to purchase, thought themselves hardly treated. Tulips
which had, at one time, been worth six thousand florins, were now to be
procured for five hundred; so that the composition of ten per cent. was
one hundred florins more than the actual value. Actions for breach of
contract were threatened in all the courts of the country; but the latter
refused to take cognizance of gambling transactions.

The matter was finally referred to the Provincial Council at the Hague,
and it was confidently expected that the wisdom of this body would invent
some measure by which credit should be restored. Expectation was on the
stretch for its decision, but it never came. The members continued to
deliberate week after week, and at last, after thinking about it for three
months, declared that they could offer no final decision until they had
more information. They advised, however, that, in the mean time, every
vendor should, in the presence of witnesses, offer the tulips in natura to
the purchaser for the sums agreed upon. If the latter refused to take
them, they might be put up for sale by public auction, and the original
contractor held responsible for the difference between the actual and the
stipulated price. This was exactly the plan recommended by the deputies,
and which was already shown to be of no avail. There was no court in
Holland which would enforce payment. The question was raised in Amsterdam,
but the judges unanimously refused to interfere, on the ground that debts
contracted in gambling were no debts in law.

Thus the matter rested. To find a remedy was beyond the power of the
government. Those who were unlucky enough to have had stores of tulips on
hand at the time of the sudden reaction were left to bear their ruin as
philosophically as they could; those who had made profits were allowed to
keep them; but the commerce of the country suffered a severe shock, from
which it was many years ere it recovered.

The example of the Dutch was imitated to some extent in England. In the
year 1636 tulips were publicly sold in the Exchange of London, and the
jobbers exerted themselves to the utmost to raise them to the fictitious
value they had acquired in Amsterdam. In Paris also the jobbers strove to
create a tulipomania. In both cities they only partially succeeded.
However, the force of example brought the flowers into great favour, and
amongst a certain class of people tulips have ever since been prized more
highly than any other flowers of the field. The Dutch are still notorious
for their partiality to them, and continue to pay higher prices for them
than any other people. As the rich Englishman boasts of his fine
race-horses or his old pictures, so does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of
his tulips.

In England, in our day, strange as it may appear, a tulip will produce
more money than an oak. If one could be found, rara in tetris, and black
as the black swan alluded to by Juvenal, its price would equal that of a
dozen acres of standing corn. In Scotland, towards the close of the
seventeenth century, the highest price for tulips, according to the
authority of a writer in the supplement to the third edition of the
“Encyclopedia Britannica,” was ten guineas. Their value appears to have
diminished from that time till the year 1769, when the two most valuable
species in England were the Don Quevedo and the Valentinier, the former of
which was worth two guineas and the latter two guineas and a half. These
prices appear to have been the minimum. In the year 1800, a common price
was fifteen guineas for a single bulb. In 1835, so foolish were the
fanciers, that a bulb of the species called the Miss Fanny Kemble was sold
by public auction in London for seventy-five pounds. Still more
astonishing was the price of a tulip in the possession of a gardener in
the King’s Road, Chelsea. In his catalogues, it was labelled at two
hundred guineas! Thus a flower, which for beauty and perfume was surpassed
by the abundant roses of the garden,—a nosegay of which might be
purchased for a penny,—was priced at a sum which would have provided
an industrious labourer and his family with food, and clothes, and lodging
for six years! Should chickweed and groundsel ever come into fashion, the
wealthy would, no doubt, vie with each other in adorning their gardens
with them, and paying the most extravagant prices for them. In so doing,
they would hardly be more foolish than the admirers of tulips. The common
prices for these flowers at the present time vary from five to fifteen
guineas, according to the rarity of the species.

RELICS.

The love for relics is one which will never be eradicated as long as
feeling and affection are denizens of the heart. It is a love which is
most easily excited in the best and kindliest natures, and which few are
callous enough to scoff at. Who would not treasure the lock of hair that
once adorned the brow of the faithful wife, now cold in death, or that
hung down the neck of a beloved infant, now sleeping under the sward? Not
one. They are home-relics, whose sacred worth is intelligible to all;
spoils rescued from the devouring grave, which, to the affectionate, are
beyond all price. How dear to a forlorn survivor the book over whose pages
he has pored with one departed! How much greater its value, if that hand,
now cold, had written a thought, an opinion, or a name, upon the leaf!
Besides these sweet, domestic relics, there are others, which no one can
condemn; relics sanctified by that admiration of greatness and goodness
which is akin to love; such as the copy of Montaigne’s Florio, with the
name of Shakspeare upon the leaf, written by the poet of all time himself;
the chair preserved at Antwerp, in which Rubens sat when he painted the
immortal “Descent from the Cross;” or the telescope, preserved in the
Museum of Florence, which aided Galileo in his sublime discoveries. Who
would not look with veneration upon the undoubted arrow of William Tell—the
swords of Wallace or of Hampden—or the Bible whose leaves were
turned by some stern old father of the faith?

Thus the principle of reliquism is hallowed and enshrined by love. But
from this germ of purity how numerous the progeny of errors and
superstitions! Men, in their admiration of the great, and of all that
appertained to them, have forgotten that goodness is a component part of
true greatness, and have made fools of themselves for the jaw-bone of a
saint, the toe-nail of an apostle, the handkerchief a king blew his nose
in, or the rope that hanged a criminal. Desiring to rescue some slight
token from the graves of their predecessors, they have confounded the
famous and the infamous, the renowned and the notorious. Great saints,
great sinners; great philosophers, great quacks; great conquerors, great
murderers; great ministers, great thieves; each and all have had their
admirers, ready to ransack earth, from the equator to either pole, to find
a relic of them.

The reliquism of modern times dates its origin from the centuries
immediately preceding the Crusades. The first pilgrims to the Holy Land
brought back to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the purchase of
which they had expended all their store. The greatest favourite was the
wood of the true cross, which, like the oil of the widow, never
diminished. It is generally asserted, in the traditions of the Romish
Church, that the Empress Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, first
discovered the veritable “true cross” in her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The
Emperor Theodosius made a present of the greater part of it to St.
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by whom it was studded with precious stones, and
deposited in the principal church of that city. It was carried away by the
Huns, by whom it was burnt, after they had extracted the valuable jewels
it contained. Fragments, purporting to have been cut from it were, in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, to be found in almost every church in
Europe, and would, if collected together in one place, have been almost
sufficient to have built a cathedral. Happy was the sinner who could get a
sight of one of them; happier he who possessed one! To obtain them the
greatest dangers were cheerfully braved. They were thought to preserve
from all evils, and to cure the most inveterate diseases. Annual
pilgrimages were made to the shrines that contained them, and considerable
revenues collected from the devotees.

Next in renown were those precious relics, the tears of the Saviour. By
whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrims did not often
inquire. Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians of the Holy Land,
and that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin Mary, and tears of St. Peter,
were also to be had, carefully enclosed in little caskets, which the pious
might wear in their bosoms. After the tears the next most precious relics
were drops of the blood of Jesus and the martyrs. Hair and toe-nails were
also in great repute, and were sold at extravagant prices. Thousands of
pilgrims annually visited Palestine in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
to purchase pretended relics for the home market. The majority of them had
no other means of subsistence than the profits thus obtained. Many a nail,
cut from the filthy foot of some unscrupulous ecclesiastic, was sold at a
diamond’s price, within six months after its severance from its parent
toe, upon the supposition that it had once belonged to a saint. Peter’s
toes were uncommonly prolific, for there were nails enough in Europe, at
the time of the Council of Clermont, to have filled a sack, all of which
were devoutly believed to have grown on the sacred feet of that great
apostle. Some of them are still shown in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The pious come from a distance of a hundred German miles to feast their
eyes upon them.

At Port Royal, in Paris, is kept with great care a thorn, which the
priests of that seminary assert to be one of the identical thorns that
bound the holy head of the Son of God. How it came there, and by whom it
was preserved, has never been explained. This is the famous thorn,
celebrated in the long dissensions of the Jansenists and the Molenists,
and which worked the miraculous cure upon Mademoiselle Perrier: by merely
kissing it, she was cured of a disease of the eyes of long standing.
[Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.]

What traveller is unacquainted with the Santa Scala, or Holy Stairs, at
Rome? They were brought from Jerusalem along with the true cross, by the
Empress Helen, and were taken from the house which, according to popular
tradition, was inhabited by Pontius Pilate. They are said to be the steps
which Jesus ascended and descended when brought into the presence of the
Roman governor. They are held in the greatest veneration at Rome: it is
sacrilegious to walk upon them. The knees of the faithful must alone touch
them in ascending or descending, and that only after they have
reverentially kissed them.

Europe still swarms with these religious relics. There is hardly a Roman
Catholic church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, or Belgium, without one
or more of them. Even the poorly endowed churches of the villages boast
the possession of miraculous thigh-bones of the innumerable saints of the
Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of the veritable chasse, or
thigh-bone of Charlemagne, which cures lameness. Halle has a thighbone of
the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or eight, all said to be undoubted
relics. Brussels at one time preserved, and perhaps does now, the teeth of
St. Gudule. The faithful, who suffered from the tooth-ache, had only to
pray, look at them, and be cured. Some of these holy bones have been
buried in different parts of the Continent. After a certain lapse of time,
water is said to ooze from them, which soon forms a spring, and cures all
the diseases of the faithful. At a church in Halle, there is a famous
thigh-bone, which cures barrenness in women. Of this bone, which is under
the special superintendence of the Virgin, a pleasant story is related by
the incredulous. There resided at Ghent a couple who were blessed with all
the riches of this world, but whose happiness was sore troubled by the
want of children. Great was the grief of the lady, who was both beautiful
and loving, and many her lamentations to her husband. The latter, annoyed
by her unceasing sorrow, advised her to make a pilgrimage to the
celebrated chasse of the Virgin. She went, was absent a week, and returned
with a face all radiant with joy and pleasure. Her lamentations ceased,
and, in nine months afterwards, she brought forth a son. But, oh! the
instability of human joys! The babe, so long desired and so greatly
beloved, survived but a few months. Two years passed over the heads of the
disconsolate couple, and no second child appeared to cheer their
fire-side. A third year passed away with the same result, and the lady
once more began to weep. “Cheer up, my love,” said her husband, “and go to
the holy chasse, at Halle; perhaps the Virgin will again listen to your
prayers.” The lady took courage at the thought, wiped away her tears, and
proceeded on the morrow towards Halle. She was absent only three days, and
returned home sad, weeping, and sorrow-stricken. “What is the matter?”
said her husband; “is the Virgin unwilling to listen to your prayers?”
“The Virgin is willing enough,” said the disconsolate wife, “and will do
what she can for me; but I shall never have any more children! The priest!
the priest!—He is gone from Halle, and nobody knows where to find
him!”

It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in all
countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any persons who have been
much spoken of, even for their crimes. When William Longbeard, leader of
the populace of London, in the reign of Richard I, was hanged at
Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shown to obtain a hair from his head,
or a shred from his garments. Women came from Essex, Kent, Suffolk,
Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to collect the mould at the foot
of his gallows. A hair of his beard was believed to preserve from evil
spirits, and a piece of his clothes from aches and pains.

In more modern days, a similar avidity was shown to obtain a relic of the
luckless Masaniello, the fisherman of Naples. After he had been raised by
mob favour to a height of power more despotic than monarch ever wielded,
he was shot by the same populace in the streets, as if he had been a mad
dog. His headless trunk was dragged through the mire for several hours,
and cast at night-fall into the city ditch. On the morrow the tide of
popular feeling turned once more in his favour. His corpse was sought,
arrayed in royal robes, and buried magnificently by torch-light in the
cathedral, ten thousand armed men, and as many mourners, attending at the
ceremony. The fisherman’s dress which he had worn was rent into shreds by
the crowd, to be preserved as relics; the door of his hut was pulled off
its hinges by a mob of women, and eagerly cut up into small pieces, to be
made into images, caskets, and other mementos. The scanty furniture of his
poor abode became of more value than the adornments of a palace; the
ground he had walked upon was considered sacred, and, being collected in
small phials, was sold at its weight in gold, and worn in the bosom as an
amulet.

Almost as extraordinary was the frenzy manifested by the populace of Paris
on the execution of the atrocious Marchioness de Brinvilliers. There were
grounds for the popular wonder in the case of Masaniello, who was
unstained with personal crimes. But the career of Madame de Brinvilliers
was of a nature to excite no other feelings than disgust and abhorrence.
She was convicted of poisoning several persons, and sentenced to be burned
in the Place de Greve, and to have her ashes scattered to the winds. On
the day of her execution, the populace, struck by her gracefulness and
beauty, inveighed against the severity of her sentence. Their pity soon
increased to admiration, and, ere evening, she was considered a saint. Her
ashes were industriously collected, even the charred wood, which had aided
to consume her, was eagerly purchased by the populace. Her ashes were
thought to preserve from witchcraft.

In England many persons have a singular love for the relics of thieves and
murderers, or other great criminals. The ropes with which they have been
hanged are very often bought by collectors at a guinea per foot. Great
sums were paid for the rope which hanged Dr. Dodd, and for those more
recently which did justice upon Mr. Fauntleroy for forgery, and on
Thurtell for the murder of Mr. Weare. The murder of Maria Marten, by
Corder, in the year 1828, excited the greatest interest all over the
country. People came from Wales and Scotland, and even from Ireland, to
visit the barn where the body of the murdered woman was buried. Every one
of them was anxious to carry away some memorial of his visit. Pieces of
the barn-door, tiles from the roof, and, above all, the clothes of the
poor victim, were eagerly sought after. A lock of her hair was sold for
two guineas, and the purchaser thought himself fortunate in getting it so
cheaply.

So great was the concourse of people to visit the house in Camberwell
Lane, where Greenacre murdered Hannah Brown, in 1837, that it was found
necessary to station a strong detachment of police on the spot. The crowd
was so eager to obtain a relic of the house of this atrocious criminal,
that the police were obliged to employ force to prevent the tables and
chairs, and even the doors, from being carried away.

In earlier times, a singular superstition was attached to the hand of a
criminal who had suffered execution. It was thought that by merely rubbing
the dead hand on the body, the patient afflicted with the king’s evil
would be instantly cured. The executioner at Newgate, sixty or seventy
years ago, derived no inconsiderable revenue from this foolish practice.
The possession of the hand was thought to be of still greater efficacy in
the cure of diseases and the prevention of misfortunes. In the time of
Charles II as much as ten guineas was thought a small price for one of
these disgusting relics.

When the maniac, Thom, or Courtenay, was shot, in the spring of 1838, the
relic-hunters were immediately in motion to obtain a memento of so
extraordinary an individual. His long, black beard and hair, which were
cut off by the surgeons, fell into the hands of his disciples, by whom
they are treasured with the utmost reverence. A lock of his hair commands
a great price, not only amongst his followers, but among the more wealthy
inhabitants of Canterbury and its neighbourhood. The tree against which he
fell when he was shot, has already been stripped of all its bark by the
curious, and bids fair to be entirely demolished within a twelvemonth. A
letter, with his signature to it, is paid for in gold coins; and his
favourite horse promises to become as celebrated as his master. Parties of
ladies and gentlemen have come to Boughton from a distance of a hundred
and fifty miles, to visit the scene of that fatal affray, and stroke on
the back the horse of the “mad Knight of Malta.” If a strict watch had not
been kept over his grave for months, the body would have been disinterred,
and the bones carried away as memorials.

Among the Chinese no relics are more valued than the boots which have been
worn by an upright magistrate. In Davis’s interesting Description of the
Empire of China, we are informed, that whenever a judge of unusual
integrity resigns his situation, the people all congregate to do him
honour. If he leaves the city where he has presided, the crowd accompany
him from his residence to the gates, where his boots are drawn off with
great ceremony, to be preserved in the hall of justice. Their place is
immediately supplied by a new pair, which, in their turn, are drawn off to
make room for others before he has worn them five minutes, it being
considered sufficient to consecrate them that he should have merely drawn
them on.

Among the most favourite relics of modern times, in Europe, are
Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree, Napoleon’s willow, and the table at Waterloo,
on which the Emperor wrote his despatches. Snuffboxes of Shakspeare’s
mulberry-tree, are comparatively rare, though there are doubtless more of
them in the market than were ever made of the wood planted by the great
bard. Many a piece of alien wood passes under this name. The same may be
said of Napoleon’s table at Waterloo. The original has long since been
destroyed, and a round dozen of counterfeits along with it. Many preserve
the simple stick of wood; others have them cut into brooches and every
variety of ornament; but by far the greater number prefer them as
snuff-boxes. In France they are made into bonbonnieres, and are much
esteemed by the many thousands whose cheeks still glow, and whose eyes
still sparkle at the name of Napoleon.

Bullets from the field of Waterloo, and buttons from the coats of the
soldiers who fell in the fight, are still favourite relics in Europe. But
the same ingenuity which found new tables after the old one was destroyed,
has cast new bullets for the curious. Many a one who thinks himself the
possessor of a bullet which aided in giving peace to the world on that
memorable day, is the owner of a dump, first extracted from the ore a
dozen years afterwards. Let all lovers of genuine relics look well to
their money before they part with it to the ciceroni that swarm in the
village of Waterloo.

Few travellers stop at the lonely isle of St. Helena, without cutting a
twig from the willow that droops over the grave of Napoleon. Many of them
have since been planted in different parts of Europe, and have grown into
trees as large as their parent. Relic-hunters, who are unable to procure a
twig of the original, are content with one from these. Several of them are
growing in the neighbourhood of London, more prized by their cultivators
than any other tree in their gardens. But in relics, as in everything
else, there is the use and the abuse. The undoubted relics of great men,
or great events, will always possess attractions for the thinking and
refined. There are few who would not join with Cowley in the extravagant
wish introduced in his lines “written while sitting in a chair made of the
remains of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world:”—

MODERN PROPHECIES.

As epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times spread over
the nations. The most remarkable was that which seized Christendom about
the middle of the tenth century. Numbers of fanatics appeared in France,
Germany, and Italy at that time, preaching that the thousand years
prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the world’s duration, were
about to expire, and that the Son of Man would appear in the clouds to
judge the godly and the ungodly. The delusion appears to have been
discouraged by the church, but it nevertheless spread rapidly among the
people. [See Gibbon and Voltaire for further notice of this subject.]

The scene of the last judgment was expected to be at Jerusalem. In the
year 999, the number of pilgrims proceeding eastward, to await the coming
of the Lord in that city, was so great that they were compared to a
desolating army. Most of them sold their goods and possessions before they
quitted Europe, and lived upon the proceeds in the Holy Land. Buildings of
every sort were suffered to fall into ruins. It was thought useless to
repair them, when the end of the world was so near. Many noble edifices
were deliberately pulled down. Even churches, usually so well maintained,
shared the general neglect. Knights, citizens, and serfs, travelled
eastwards in company, taking with them their wives and children, singing
psalms as they went, and looking with fearful eyes upon the sky, which
they expected each minute to open, to let the Son of God descend in his
glory.

During the thousandth year the number of pilgrims increased. Most of them
were smitten with terror as with a plague. Every phenomenon of nature
filled them with alarm. A thunder-storm sent them all upon their knees in
mid-march. It was the opinion that thunder was the voice of God,
announcing the day of judgment. Numbers expected the earth to open, and
give up its dead at the sound. Every meteor in the sky seen at Jerusalem
brought the whole Christian population into the streets to weep and pray.
The pilgrims on the road were in the same alarm:—

Fanatic preachers kept up the flame of terror. Every shooting star
furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the sublimity of the approaching
judgment was the principal topic.

The appearance of comets has been often thought to foretell the speedy
dissolution of this world. Part of this belief still exists; but the comet
is no longer looked upon as the sign, but the agent of destruction. So
lately as in the year 1832 the greatest alarm spread over the Continent of
Europe, especially in Germany, lest the comet, whose appearance was then
foretold by astronomers, should destroy the earth. The danger of our globe
was gravely discussed. Many persons refrained from undertaking or
concluding any business during that year, in consequence solely of their
apprehension that this terrible comet would dash us and our world to
atoms.

During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies
of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is
always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all sorts are rife on
such occasions, and are readily believed, whether for good or evil. During
the great plague, which ravaged all Europe, between the years 1345 and
1350, it was generally considered that the end of the world was at hand.
Pretended prophets were to be found in all the principal cities of
Germany, France, and Italy, predicting that within ten years the trump of
the Archangel would sound, and the Saviour appear in the clouds to call
the earth to judgment.

No little consternation was created in London in 1736 by the prophecy of
the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in that year, on the
13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the appointed day to
Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to see the destruction
of London, which was to be the “beginning of the end.” A satirical account
of this folly is given in Swift’s Miscellanies, vol. iii. entitled, “A
True and Faithful Narrative of what passed in London on a Rumour of the
Day of Judgment.” An authentic narrative of this delusion would be
interesting; but this solemn witticism of Pope and Gay is not to be
depended upon.

In the year 1761 the citizens of London were again frightened out of their
wits by two shocks of an earthquake, and the prophecy of a third, which
was to destroy them altogether. The first shock was felt on the 8th of
February, and threw down several chimneys in the neighbourhood of
Limehouse and Poplar; the second happened on the 8th of March, and was
chiefly felt in the north of London, and towards Hampstead and Highgate.
It soon became the subject of general remark, that there was exactly an
interval of a month between the shocks; and a crack-brained fellow, named
Bell, a soldier in the Life Guards, was so impressed with the idea that
there would be a third in another month, that he lost his senses
altogether, and ran about the streets predicting the destruction of London
on the 5th of April. Most people thought that the first would have been a
more appropriate day; but there were not wanting thousands who confidently
believed the prediction, and took measures to transport themselves and
families from the scene of the impending calamity. As the awful day
approached, the excitement became intense, and great numbers of credulous
people resorted to all the villages within a circuit of twenty miles,
awaiting the doom of London. Islington, Highgate, Hampstead, Harrow, and
Blackheath, were crowded with panic-stricken fugitives, who paid
exorbitant prices for accommodation to the housekeepers of these secure
retreats. Such as could not afford to pay for lodgings at any of those
places, remained in London until two or three days before the time, and
then encamped in the surrounding fields, awaiting the tremendous shock
which was to lay their high city all level with the dust. As happened
during a similar panic in the time of Henry VIII, the fear became
contagious, and hundreds who had laughed at the prediction a week before,
packed up their goods, when they saw others doing so, and hastened away.
The river was thought to be a place of great security, and all the
merchant vessels in the port were filled with people, who passed the night
between the 4th and 5th on board, expecting every instant to see St.
Paul’s totter, and the towers of Westminster Abbey rock in the wind and
fall amid a cloud of dust. The greater part of the fugitives returned on
the following day, convinced that the prophet was a false one; but many
judged it more prudent to allow a week to elapse before they trusted their
dear limbs in London. Bell lost all credit in a short time, and was looked
upon even by the most credulous as a mere madman. He tried some other
prophecies, but nobody was deceived by them; and, in a few months
afterwards, he was confined in a lunatic asylum.

A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds and
its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following
circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were
inscribed, in legible characters, the words “Christ is coming.” Great
numbers visited the spot, and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced that
the day of judgment was near at hand. Like sailors in a storm, expecting
every instant to go to the bottom, the believers suddenly became
religious, prayed violently, and flattered themselves that they repented
them of their evil courses. But a plain tale soon put them down, and
quenched their religion entirely. Some gentlemen, hearing of the matter,
went one fine morning, and caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of
her miraculous eggs. They soon ascertained beyond doubt that the egg had
been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into
the bird’s body. At this explanation, those who had prayed, now laughed,
and the world wagged as merrily as of yore.

At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting a
description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work “De
Peste Mediolani”, the people, in their distress, listened with avidity to
the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is singular enough
that the plague was foretold a year before it broke out. A large comet
appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were divided with regard to
it. Some insisted that it was a forerunner of a bloody war; others
maintained that it predicted a great famine; but the greater number,
founding their judgment upon its pale colour, thought it portended a
pestilence. The fulfilment of their prediction brought them into great
repute while the plague was raging.

Other prophecies were current, which were asserted to have been delivered
hundreds of years previously. They had a most pernicious effect upon the
mind of the vulgar, as they induced a belief in fatalism. By taking away
the hope of recovery—that greatest balm in every malady—they
increased threefold the ravages of the disease. One singular prediction
almost drove the unhappy people mad. An ancient couplet, preserved for
ages by tradition, foretold, that in the year 1630 the devil would poison
all Milan. Early one morning in April, and before the pestilence had
reached its height, the passengers were surprised to see that all the
doors in the principal streets of the city were marked with a curious
daub, or spot, as if a sponge, filled with the purulent matter of the
plague-sores, had been pressed against them. The whole population were
speedily in movement to remark the strange appearance, and the greatest
alarm spread rapidly. Every means was taken to discover the perpetrators,
but in vain. At last the ancient prophecy was remembered, and prayers were
offered up in all the churches that the machinations of the Evil One might
be defeated. Many persons were of opinion that the emissaries of foreign
powers were employed to spread infectious poison over the city; but by far
the greater number were convinced that the powers of hell had conspired
against them, and that the infection was spread by supernatural agencies.
In the mean time the plague increased fearfully. Distrust and alarm took
possession of every mind. Everything was believed to have been poisoned by
the devil; the waters of the wells, the standing corn in the fields, and
the fruit upon the trees. It was believed that all objects of touch were
poisoned; the walls of the houses, the pavement of the streets, and the
very handles of the doors. The populace were raised to a pitch of
ungovernable fury. A strict watch was kept for the devil’s emissaries, and
any man who wanted to be rid of an enemy, had only to say that he had seen
him besmearing a door with ointment; his fate was certain death at the
hands of the mob. An old man, upwards of eighty years of age, a daily
frequenter of the church of St. Antonio, was seen, on rising from his
knees, to wipe with the skirt of his cloak the stool on which he was about
to sit down. A cry was raised immediately that he was besmearing the seat
with poison. A mob of women, by whom the church was crowded, seized hold
of the feeble old man, and dragged him out by the hair of his head, with
horrid oaths and imprecations. He was trailed in this manner through the
mire to the house of the municipal judge, that he might be put to the
rack, and forced to discover his accomplices; but he expired on the way.
Many other victims were sacrificed to the popular fury. One Mora, who
appears to have been half a chemist and half a barber, was accused of
being in league with the devil to poison Milan. His house was surrounded,
and a number of chemical preparations were found. The poor man asserted,
that they were intended as preservatives against infection; but some
physicians, to whom they were submitted, declared they were poison. Mora
was put to the rack, where he for a long time asserted his innocence. He
confessed at last, when his courage was worn down by torture, that he was
in league with the devil and foreign powers to poison the whole city; that
he had anointed the doors, and infected the fountains of water. He named
several persons as his accomplices, who were apprehended and put to a
similar torture. They were all found guilty, and executed. Mora’s house
was rased to the ground, and a column erected on the spot, with an
inscription to commemorate his guilt.

While the public mind was filled with these marvellous occurrences, the
plague continued to increase. The crowds that were brought together to
witness the executions, spread the infection among one another. But the
fury of their passions, and the extent of their credulity, kept pace with
the violence of the plague; every wonderful and preposterous story was
believed. One, in particular, occupied them to the exclusion, for a long
time, of every other. The Devil himself had been seen. He had taken a
house in Milan, in which he prepared his poisonous unguents, and furnished
them to his emissaries for distribution. One man had brooded over such
tales till he became firmly convinced that the wild flights of his own
fancy were realities. He stationed himself in the market-place of Milan,
and related the following story to the crowds that gathered round him. He
was standing, he said, at the door of the cathedral, late in the evening,
and when there was nobody nigh, he saw a dark-coloured chariot, drawn by
six milk-white horses, stop close beside him. The chariot was followed by
a numerous train of domestics in dark liveries, mounted on dark-coloured
steeds. In the chariot there sat a tall stranger of a majestic aspect; his
long black hair floated in the wind—fire flashed from his large
black eyes, and a curl of ineffable scorn dwelt upon his lips. The look of
the stranger was so sublime that he was awed, and trembled with fear when
he gazed upon him. His complexion was much darker than that of any man he
had ever seen, and the atmosphere around him was hot and suffocating. He
perceived immediately that he was a being of another world. The stranger,
seeing his trepidation, asked him blandly, yet majestically, to mount
beside him. He had no power to refuse, and before he was well aware that
he had moved, he found himself in the chariot. Onwards they went, with the
rapidity of the wind, the stranger speaking no word, until they stopped
before a door in the high-street of Milan. There was a crowd of people in
the street, but, to his great surprise, no one seemed to notice the
extraordinary equipage and its numerous train. From this he concluded that
they were invisible. The house at which they stopped appeared to be a
shop, but the interior was like a vast half-ruined palace. He went with
his mysterious guide through several large and dimly-lighted rooms. In one
of them, surrounded by huge pillars of marble, a senate of ghosts was
assembled, debating on the progress of the plague. Other parts of the
building were enveloped in the thickest darkness, illumined at intervals
by flashes of lightning, which allowed him to distinguish a number of
gibing and chattering skeletons, running about and pursuing each other, or
playing at leap-frog over one another’s backs. At the rear of the mansion
was a wild, uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a
black rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of
poisonous water, which, insinuating itself through the soil, penetrated to
all the springs of the city, and rendered them unfit for use. After he had
been shown all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber,
filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if he
would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors and
houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out to him. He now
knew him to be the Devil, and in that moment of temptation, prayed to God
to give him strength to resist. His prayer was heard—he refused the
bribe. The stranger scowled horribly upon him—a loud clap of thunder
burst over his head—the vivid lightning flashed in his eyes, and the
next moment he found himself standing alone at the porch of the cathedral.
He repeated this strange tale day after day, without any variation, and
all the populace were firm believers in its truth. Repeated search was
made to discover the mysterious house, but all in vain. The man pointed
out several as resembling it, which were searched by the police; but the
Demon of the Pestilence was not to be found, nor the hall of ghosts, nor
the poisonous fountain. But the minds of the people were so impressed with
the idea that scores of witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to
swear that they also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his
chariot, drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at
midnight with a sound louder than thunder.

The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil
to distribute poison is almost incredible. An epidemic frenzy was abroad,
which seemed to be as contagious as the plague. Imagination was as
disordered as the body, and day after day persons came voluntarily forward
to accuse themselves. They generally had the marks of disease upon them,
and some died in the act of confession.

During the great plague of London, in 1665, the people listened with
similar avidity to the predictions of quacks and fanatics. Defoe says,
that at that time the people were more addicted to prophecies and
astronomical conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales than ever they
were before or since. Almanacs, and their predictions, frightened them
terribly. Even the year before the plague broke out, they were greatly
alarmed by the comet which then appeared, and anticipated that famine,
pestilence, or fire would follow. Enthusiasts, while yet the disease had
made but little progress, ran about the streets, predicting that in a few
days London would be destroyed.

A still more singular instance of the faith in predictions occurred in
London in the year 1524. The city swarmed at that time with
fortune-tellers and astrologers, who were consulted daily by people of
every class in society on the secrets of futurity. As early as the month
of June 1523, several of them concurred in predicting that, on the 1st day
of February, 1524, the waters of the Thames would swell to such a height
as to overflow the whole city of London, and wash away ten thousand
houses. The prophecy met implicit belief. It was reiterated with the
utmost confidence month after month, until so much alarm was excited that
many families packed up their goods, and removed into Kent and Essex. As
the time drew nigh, the number of these emigrants increased. In January,
droves of workmen might be seen, followed by their wives and children,
trudging on foot to the villages within fifteen or twenty miles, to await
the catastrophe. People of a higher class were also to be seen, in waggons
and other vehicles, bound on a similar errand. By the middle of January,
at least twenty thousand persons had quitted the doomed city, leaving
nothing but the bare walls of their homes to be swept away by the
impending floods. Many of the richer sort took up their abode on the
heights of Highgate, Hampstead, and Blackheath; and some erected tents as
far away as Waltham Abbey, on the north, and Croydon, on the south of the
Thames. Bolton, the prior of St. Bartholomew’s, was so alarmed that he
erected, at very great expense, a sort of fortress at Harrow-on-the-Hill,
which he stocked with provisions for two months. On the 24th of January, a
week before the awful day which was to see the destruction of London, he
removed thither, with the brethren and officers of the priory and all his
household. A number of boats were conveyed in waggons to his fortress,
furnished abundantly with expert rowers, in case the flood, reaching so
high as Harrow, should force them to go further for a resting-place. Many
wealthy citizens prayed to share his retreat, but the Prior, with a
prudent forethought, admitted only his personal friends, and those who
brought stores of eatables for the blockade.

At last the morn, big with the fate of London, appeared in the east. The
wondering crowds were astir at an early hour to watch the rising of the
waters. The inundation, it was predicted, would be gradual, not sudden; so
that they expected to have plenty of time to escape, as soon as they saw
the bosom of old Thames heave beyond the usual mark. But the majority were
too much alarmed to trust to this, and thought themselves safer ten or
twenty miles off. The Thames, unmindful of the foolish crowds upon its
banks, flowed on quietly as of yore. The tide ebbed at its usual hour,
flowed to its usual height, and then ebbed again, just as if twenty
astrologers had not pledged their words to the contrary. Blank were their
faces as evening approached, and as blank grew the faces of the citizens
to think that they had made such fools of themselves. At last night set
in, and the obstinate river would not lift its waters to sweep away even
one house out of the ten thousand. Still, however, the people were afraid
to go to sleep. Many hundreds remained up till dawn of the next day, lest
the deluge should come upon them like a thief in the night.

On the morrow, it was seriously discussed whether it would not be
advisable to duck the false prophets in the river. Luckily for them, they
thought of an expedient which allayed the popular fury. They asserted
that, by an error (a very slight one) of a little figure, they had fixed
the date of this awful inundation a whole century too early. The stars
were right after all, and they, erring mortals, were wrong. The present
generation of cockneys was safe, and London ‘would be washed away, not in
1524, but in 1624. At this announcement, Bolton, the prior, dismantled his
fortress, and the weary emigrants came back.

An eye-witness of the great fire of London, in an account preserved among
the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, and recently published in the
Transactions of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, relates another instance
of the credulity of the Londoners. The writer, who accompanied the Duke of
York day by day through the district included between the Fleet-bridge and
the Thames, states that, in their efforts to check the progress of the
flames, they were much impeded by the superstition of the people. Mother
Shipton, in one of her prophecies, had said that London would be reduced
to ashes, and they refused to make any efforts to prevent it. [This
prophecy seems to have been that set forth at length in the popular Life
of Mother Shipton:—

A son of the noted Sir Kenelm Digby, who was also a pretender to the gifts
of prophecy, persuaded them that no power on earth could prevent the
fulfilment of the prediction; for it was written in the great book of fate
that London was to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who might have
rendered valuable assistance, and saved whole parishes from devastation,
folded their arms and looked on. As many more gave themselves up, with the
less compunction, to plunder a city which they could not save.

The prophecies of Mother Shipton are still believed in many of the rural
districts of England. In cottages and servants’ halls her reputation is
great; and she rules, the most popular of British prophets, among all the
uneducated, or half-educated, portions of the community. She is generally
supposed to have been born at Knaresborough, in the reign of Henry VII,
and to have sold her soul to the Devil for the power of foretelling future
events. Though during her lifetime she was looked upon as a witch, she yet
escaped the witch’s fate, and died peaceably in her bed at an extreme old
age, near Clifton in Yorkshire. A stone is said to have been erected to
her memory in the church-yard of that place, with the following epitaph:—

“Here lies she who never lied; Whose skill often has been tried: Her
prophecies shall still survive, And ever keep her name alive.”

“Never a day passed,” says her traditionary biography, “wherein she did
not relate something remarkable, and that required the most serious
consideration. People flocked to her from far and near, her fame was so
great. They went to her of all sorts, both old and young, rich and poor,
especially young maidens, to be resolved of their doubts relating to
things to come; and all returned wonderfully satisfied in the explanations
she gave to their questions.” Among the rest, went the Abbot of Beverley,
to whom she foretold the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII; his
marriage with Anne Boleyn; the fires for heretics in Smithfield, and the
execution of Mary Queen of Scots. She also foretold the accession of James
I, adding that, with him,

On a subsequent visit she uttered another prophecy, which, in the opinion
of her believers, still remains unfulfilled, but may be expected to be
realised during the present century:—

But the most famous of all her prophecies is one relating to London.
Thousands of persons still shudder to think of the woes that are to burst
over this unhappy realm, when London and Highgate are joined by one
continuous line of houses. This junction, which, if the rage for building
lasts much longer, in the same proportion as heretofore, bids fair to be
soon accomplished, was predicted by her shortly before her death.
Revolutions—the fall of mighty monarchs, and the shedding of much
blood are to signalise that event. The very angels, afflicted by our woes,
are to turn aside their heads, and weep for hapless Britain.

But great as is the fame of Mother Shipton, she ranks but second in the
list of British prophets. Merlin, the mighty Merlin, stands alone in his
high pre-eminence—the first and greatest. As old Drayton sings, in
his Poly-olbion:—

Spenser, in his divine poem, has given us a powerful description of this
renowned seer—

In these verses the poet has preserved the popular belief with regard to
Merlin, who is generally supposed to have been a contemporary of
Vortigern. Opinion is divided as to whether he were a real personage, or a
mere impersonation, formed by the poetic fancy of a credulous people. It
seems most probable that such a man did exist, and that, possessing
knowledge as much above the comprehension of his age, as that possessed by
Friar Bacon was beyond the reach of his, he was endowed by the wondering
crowd with the supernatural attributes that Spenser has enumerated.

Geoffrey of Monmouth translated Merlin’s poetical odes, or prophecies,
into Latin prose, and he was much reverenced, not only by Geoffrey, but by
most of the old annalists. In a “Life of Merlin, with his Prophecies and
Predictions, interpreted and made good by our English Annals,” by Thomas
Heywood, published in the reign of Charles I, we find several of these
pretended prophecies. They seem, however, to have been all written by
Heywood himself. They are in terms too plain and positive to allow any one
to doubt for a moment of their having been composed ex post facto.
Speaking of Richard I, he says:—

The sapient Thomas Heywood gravely goes on to inform us, that all these
things actually came to pass. Upon Richard III he is equally luminous. He
says:—

Another of these prophecies after the event tells us that Henry VIII
should take the power from Rome, “and bring it home unto his British
bower;” that he should “root out from the land all the razored skulls;”
and that he should neither spare “man in his rage nor woman in his lust;”
and that, in the time of his next successor but one, “there should come in
the fagot and the stake.” Master Heywood closes Merlin’s prophecies at his
own day, and does not give even a glimpse of what was to befall England
after his decease. Many other prophecies, besides those quoted by him,
were, he says, dispersed abroad, in his day, under the name of Merlin; but
he gives his readers a taste of one only, and that is the following:—

This prophecy, which, one would think, ought to have put him in mind of
the gallows, the not unusual fate of false prophets, and perchance his
own, he explains thus:—”In this word HEMPE be five letters. Now, by
reckoning the five successive princes from Henry VIII, this prophecy is
easily explained: H signifieth King Henry before named; E, Edward, his
son, the sixth of that name; M, Mary, who succeeded him; P, Philip of
Spain, who, by marrying Queen Mary, participated with her in the English
diadem; and, lastly, E signifieth Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there
was a great feare that some troubles might have arisen about the crown.”
As this did not happen, Heywood, who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets
out of the scrape by saying, “Yet proved this augury true, though not
according to the former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration
of King James, there was great mortality, not in London only, but through
the whole kingdom, and from which the nation was not quite clean in seven
years after.”

This is not unlike the subterfuge of Peter of Pontefract, who had
prophesied the death and deposition of King John, and who was hanged by
that monarch for his pains. A very graphic and amusing account of this
pretended prophet is given by Grafton, in his Chronicles of England. There
is so much homely vigour about the style of the old annalist, that it
would be a pity to give the story in other words than his own. [Chronicles
of England, by Richard Grafton; London, 1568, p. 106.] “In the meanwhile,”
says he, “the priestes within England had provided them a false and
counterfeated prophet, called Peter Wakefielde, a Yorkshire man, who was
an hermite, an idle gadder about, and a pratlyng marchant. Now to bring
this Peter in credite, and the kyng out of all credite with his people,
diverse vaine persons bruted dayly among the commons of the realme, that
Christe had twice appered unto him in the shape of a childe, betwene the
prieste’s handes, once at Yorke, another tyme at Pomfret; and that he had
breathed upon him thrice, saying, ‘Peace, peace, peace,’ and teachyng many
things, which he anon declared to the bishops, and bid the people amend
their naughtie living. Being rapt also in spirite, they sayde he behelde
the joyes of heaven and sorowes of hell, for scant were there three in the
realme, sayde he, that lived Christainly.

“This counterfeated soothsayer prophecied of King John, that he should
reigne no longer than the Ascension-day next followyng, which was in the
yere of our Lord 1211, and was the thirteenth yere from his coronation;
and this, he said, he had by revelation. Then it was of him demanded,
whether he should be slaine or be deposed, or should voluntarily give over
the crowne? He aunswered, that he could not tell; but of this he was sure
(he sayd), that neither he nor any of his stock or lineage should reigne
after that day.

“The king hering of this, laughed much at it, and made but a scoff
thereat. ‘Tush!’ saith he, ‘it is but an ideot knave, and such an one as
lacketh his right wittes.’ But when this foolish prophet had so escaped
the daunger of the Kinge’s displeasure, and that he made no more of it, he
gate him abroad, and prated thereof at large, as he was a very idle
vagabond, and used to trattle and talke more than ynough, so that they
which loved the King caused him anon after to be apprehended as a
malefactor, and to be throwen in prison, the King not yet knowing thereof.

“Anone after the fame of this phantasticall prophet went all the realme
over, and his name was knowen everywhere, as foolishnesse is much regarded
of the people, where wisdome is not in place; specially because he was
then imprisoned for the matter, the rumour was the larger, their
wonderynges were the wantoner, their practises the foolisher, their busye
talkes and other idle doinges the greater. Continually from thence, as the
rude manner of people is, olde gossyps tales went abroade, new tales were
invented, fables were added to fables, and lyes grew upon lyes. So that
every daye newe slanders were laide upon the King, and not one of them
true. Rumors arose, blasphemyes were sprede, the enemyes rejoyced, and
treasons by the priestes were mainteyned; and what lykewise was surmised,
or other subtiltye practised, all was then lathered upon this foolish
prophet, as ‘thus saith Peter Wakefield;’ ‘thus hath he prophecied;’ ‘and
thus it shall come to pass;’ yea, many times, when he thought nothing
lesse. And when the Ascension-day was come, which was prophecyed of
before, King John commanded his royal tent to be spread in the open
fielde, passing that day with his noble counseyle and men of honour, in
the greatest solemnitie that ever he did before; solacing himself with
musickale instrumentes and songs, most in sight among his trustie
friendes. When that day was paste in all prosperitie and myrth, his
enemyes being confused, turned all into an allegorical understanding to
make the prophecie good, and sayde, ‘he is no longer King, for the Pope
reigneth, and not he.'” [King John was labouring under a sentence of
excommunication at the time.]

“Then was the King by his council perswaded that this false prophet had
troubled the realme, perverted the heartes of the people, and raysed the
commons against him; for his wordes went over the sea, by the help of his
prelates, and came to the French King’s care, and gave to him a great
encouragement to invade the lande. He had not else done it so sodeinely.
But he was most lowly deceived, as all they are and shall be that put
their trust in such dark drowsye dreames of hipocrites. The King therefore
commanded that he should be hanged up, and his sonne also with him, lest
any more false prophets should arise of that race.”

Heywood, who was a great stickler for the truth of all sorts of
prophecies, gives a much more favourable account of this Peter of Pomfret,
or Pontefract, whose fate he would, in all probability, have shared, if he
had had the misfortune to have flourished in the same age. He says, that
Peter, who was not only a prophet, but a bard, predicted divers of King
John’s disasters, which fell out accordingly. On being taxed for a lying
prophet in having predicted that the King would be deposed before he
entered into the fifteenth year of his reign, he answered him boldly, that
all he had said was justifiable and true; for that, having given up his
crown to the Pope, and paying him an annual tribute, the Pope reigned, and
not he. Heywood thought this explanation to be perfectly satisfactory, and
the prophet’s faith for ever established.

But to return to Merlin. Of him even to this day it may be said, in the
words which Burns has applied to another notorious personage,

His reputation is by no means confined to the land of his birth, but
extends through most of the nations of Europe. A very curious volume of
his Life, Prophecies, and Miracles, written, it is supposed, by Robert de
Bosron, was printed at Paris in 1498, which states, that the Devil himself
was his father, and that he spoke the instant he was born, and assured his
mother, a very virtuous young woman, that she should not die in child-bed
with him, as her ill-natured neighbours had predicted. The judge of the
district, hearing of so marvellous an occurrence, summoned both mother and
child to appear before him; and they went accordingly the same day. To put
the wisdom of the young prophet most effectually to the test, the judge
asked him if he knew his own father? To which the infant Merlin replied,
in a clear, sonorous voice, “Yes, my father is the Devil; and I have his
power, and know all things, past, present, and to come.” His worship
clapped his hands in astonishment, and took the prudent resolution of not
molesting so awful a child, or its mother either.

Early tradition attributes the building of Stonehenge to the power of
Merlin. It was believed that those mighty stones were whirled through the
air, at his command, from Ireland to Salisbury Plain, and that he arranged
them in the form in which they now stand, to commemorate for ever the
unhappy fate of three hundred British chiefs, who were massacred on that
spot by the Saxons.

At Abergwylly, near Caermarthen, is still shown the cave of the prophet
and the scene of his incantations. How beautiful is the description of it
given by Spenser in his “Faerie Queene.” The lines need no apology for
their repetition here, and any sketch of the great prophet of Britain
would be incomplete without them:—

Amongst other English prophets, a belief in whose power has not been
entirely effaced by the light of advancing knowledge, is Robert Nixon, the
Cheshire idiot, a contemporary of Mother Shipton. The popular accounts of
this man say, that he was born of poor parents, not far from Vale Royal,
on the edge of the forest of Delamere. He was brought up to the plough,
but was so ignorant and stupid, that nothing could be made of him.
Everybody thought him irretrievably insane, and paid no attention to the
strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are
believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always
destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred
which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of
the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped
from his labour, and, with a wild look and strange gestures, exclaimed,
“Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! O, well done, Harry! Harry has
gained the day!” His fellow labourers in the field did not know what to
make of this rhapsody; but the next day cleared up the mystery. News was
brought by a messenger, in hot haste, that at the very instant when Nixon
had thus ejaculated, Richard III had been slain at the battle of Bosworth,
and Henry VII proclaimed King of England.

It was not long before the fame of the new prophet reached the ears of the
King, who expressed a wish to see and converse with him. A messenger was
accordingly despatched to bring him to court; but long before he reached
Cheshire, Nixon knew and dreaded the honours that awaited him. Indeed it
was said, that at the very instant the King expressed the wish, Nixon was,
by supernatural means, made acquainted with it, and that he ran about the
town of Over in great distress of mind, calling out, like a madman, that
Henry had sent for him, and that he must go to court, and be clammed; that
is, starved to death. These expressions excited no little wonder; but, on
the third day, the messenger arrived, and carried him to court, leaving on
the minds of the good people of Cheshire an impression that their prophet
was one of the greatest ever born. On his arrival King Henry appeared to
be troubled exceedingly at the loss of a valuable diamond, and asked Nixon
if he could inform him where it was to be found. Henry had hidden the
diamond himself, with a view to test the prophet’s skill. Great,
therefore, was his surprise when Nixon answered him in the words of the
old proverb, “Those who hide can find.” From that time forth the King
implicitly believed that he had the gift of prophecy, and ordered all his
words to be taken down.

During all the time of his residence at court he was in constant fear of
being starved to death, and repeatedly told the King that such would be
his fate, if he were not allowed to depart, and return into his own
country. Henry would not suffer it, but gave strict orders to all his
officers and cooks to give him as much to eat as he wanted. He lived so
well, that for some time he seemed to be thriving like a nobleman’s
steward, and growing as fat as an alderman. One day the king went out
hunting, when Nixon ran to the palace gate, and entreated on his knees
that he might not be left behind to be starved. The King laughed, and,
calling an officer, told him to take especial care of the prophet during
his absence, and rode away to the forest. After his departure, the
servants of the palace began to jeer at and insult Nixon, whom they
imagined to be much better treated than he deserved. Nixon complained to
the officer, who, to prevent him from being further molested, locked him
up in the King’s own closet, and brought him regularly his four meals a
day. But it so happened that a messenger arrived from the King to this
officer, requiring his immediate presence at Winchester, on a matter of
life and death. So great was his haste to obey the King’s command, that he
mounted on the horse behind the messenger, and rode off, without bestowing
a thought upon poor Nixon. He did not return till three days afterwards,
when, remembering the prophet for the first time, he went to the King’s
closet, and found him lying upon the floor, starved to death, as he had
predicted.

Among the prophecies of his which are believed to have been fulfilled, are
the following, which relate to the times of the Pretender:—

All these, say his admirers, are as clear as the sun at noon-day. The
first denotes the defeat of Prince Charles Edward, at the battle of
Culloden, by the Duke of Cumberland; the second, the execution of Lords
Derwentwater, Balmerino, and Lovat; and the third, the retreat of the
Pretender from the shores of Britain. Among the prophecies that still
remain to be accomplished, are the following:—

“Foreign nations shall invade England with snow on their helmets, and
shall bring plague, famine, and murder in the skirts of their garments.”

Of the two first of these no explanation has yet been attempted; but some
event or other will doubtless be twisted into such a shape as will fit
them. The third, relative to the invasion of England by a nation with snow
on their helmets, is supposed by the old women to foretell most clearly
the coming war with Russia. As to the last, there are not a few in the
town mentioned who devoutly believe that such will be its fate. Happily
for their peace of mind, the prophet said nothing of the year that was to
witness the awful calamity; so that they think it as likely to be two
centuries hence as now.

The popular biographers of Nixon conclude their account of him by saying,
that “his prophecies are by some persons thought fables; yet by what has
come to pass, it is now thought, and very plainly appears, that most of
them have proved, or will prove, true; for which we, on all occasions,
ought not only to exert our utmost might to repel by force our enemies,
but to refrain from our abandoned and wicked course of life, and to make
our continual prayer to God for protection and safety.” To this, though a
non sequitur, every one will cry Amen!

Besides the prophets, there have been the almanack makers, Lilly, Poor
Robin, Partridge, and Francis Moore, physician, in England, and Matthew
Laensbergh, in France and Belgium. But great as were their pretensions,
they were modesty itself in comparison with Merlin, Shipton, and Nixon,
who fixed their minds upon higher things than the weather, and who were
not so restrained in their flights of fancy as to prophesy for only one
year at a time. After such prophets as they, the almanack makers hardly
deserve to be mentioned; no, not even the renowned Partridge, whose
wonderful prognostications set all England agog in 1708, and whose death,
at a time when he was still alive and kicking, was so pleasantly and
satisfactorily proved by Isaac Bickerstaff. The anti-climax would be too
palpable, and they and their doings must be left uncommemorated.

POPULAR ADMIRATION FOR GREAT THIEVES.

Jack. Where shall we find such another set of practical philosophers who,
to a man, are above the fear of death?

Wat. Sound men and true!

Robin. Of tried courage and indefatigable industry!

Ned. Who is there here that would not die for his friend?

Harry. Who is there here that would betray him for his interest?

Mat. Show me a gang of courtiers that could say as much!

Dialogue of thieves in the Beggars’ Opera.

Whether it be that the multitude, feeling the pangs of poverty, sympathise
with the daring and ingenious depredators who take away the rich man’s
superfluity, or whether it be the interest that mankind in general feel
for the records of perilous adventures, it is certain that the populace of
all countries look with admiration upon great and successful thieves.
Perhaps both these causes combine to invest their career with charms in
the popular eye. Almost every country in Europe has its traditional thief,
whose exploits are recorded with all the graces of poetry, and whose
trespasses—

Those travellers who have made national manners and characteristics their
peculiar study, have often observed and remarked upon this feeling. The
learned Abbe le Blanc, who resided for some time in England at the
commencement of the eighteenth century, says, in his amusing letters on
the English and French nations, that he continually met with Englishmen
who were not less vain in boasting of the success of their highwaymen than
of the bravery of their troops. Tales of their address, their cunning, or
their generosity, were in the mouths of everybody, and a noted thief was a
kind of hero in high repute. He adds that the mob, in all countries, being
easily moved, look in general with concern upon criminals going to the
gallows; but an English mob looked upon such scenes with ‘extraordinary
interest: they delighted to see them go through their last trials with
resolution, and applauded those who were insensible enough to die as they
had lived, braving the justice both of God and men: such, he might have
added, as the noted robber Macpherson, of whom the old ballad says—

Among these traditional thieves the most noted in England, or perhaps in
any country, is Robin Hood, a name which popular affection has encircled
with a peculiar halo. “He robbed the rich to give to the poor;” and his
reward has been an immortality of fame, a tithe of which would be thought
more than sufficient to recompense a benefactor of his species. Romance
and poetry have been emulous to make him all their own; and the forest of
Sherwood, in which he roamed with his merry men, armed with their long
bows, and clad in Lincoln green, has become the resort of pilgrims, and a
classic spot sacred to his memory. The few virtues he had, which would
have ensured him no praise if he had been an honest man, have been
blazoned forth by popular renown during seven successive centuries, and
will never be forgotten while the English tongue endures. His charity to
the poor, and his gallantry and respect for women, have made him the
pre-eminent thief of all the world.

Among English thieves of a later date, who has not heard of Claude Duval,
Dick Turpin, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard, those knights of the road
and of the town, whose peculiar chivalry formed at once the dread and the
delight of England during the eighteenth century? Turpin’s fame is unknown
to no portion of the male population of England after they have attained
the age of ten. His wondrous ride from London to York has endeared him to
the imagination of millions; his cruelty in placing an old woman upon a
fire, to force her to tell him where she had hidden her money, is regarded
as a good joke; and his proud bearing upon the scaffold is looked upon as
a virtuous action. The Abbe le Blanc, writing in 1737, says he was
continually entertained with stories of Turpin—how, when he robbed
gentlemen, he would generously leave them enough to continue their
journey, and exact a pledge from them never to inform against him, and how
scrupulous such gentlemen were in keeping their word. He was one day told
a story with which the relator was he the highest degree delighted.
Turpin, or some other noted robber, stopped a man whom he knew to be very
rich, with the usual salutation—”Your money or your life!” but not
finding more than five or six guineas about him, he took the liberty of
entreating him, in the most affable manner, never to come out so ill
provided; adding that, if he fell in with him, and he had no more than
such a paltry sum, he would give him a good licking. Another story, told
by one of Turpin’s admirers, was of a robbery he had committed upon a Mr.
C. near Cambridge. He took from this gentleman his watch, his snuff-box,
and all his money but two shillings, and, before he left him, required his
word of honour that he would not cause him to be pursued or brought before
a justice. The promise being given, they both parted very courteously.
They afterwards met at Newmarket, and renewed their acquaintance. Mr. C.
kept his word religiously; he not only refrained from giving Turpin into
custody, but made a boast that he had fairly won some of his money back
again in an honest way. Turpin offered to bet with him on some favourite
horse, and Mr. C. accepted the wager with as good a grace as he could have
done from the best gentleman in England. Turpin lost his bet and paid it
immediately, and was so smitten with the generous behaviour of Mr. C. that
he told him how deeply he regretted that the trifling affair which had
happened between them did not permit them to drink together. The narrator
of this anecdote was quite proud that England was the birthplace of such a
highwayman.

[The Abbe, in the second volume, in the letter No. 79, dressed to Monsieur
de Buffon, gives the following curious particulars of the robbers of 1757,
which are not without interest at this day, if it were only to show the
vast improvement which has taken place since that period:—”It is
usual, in travelling, to put ten or a dozen guineas in a separate pocket,
as a tribute to the first that comes to demand them: the right of
passport, which custom has established here in favour of the robbers, who
are almost the only highway surveyors in England, has made this necessary;
and accordingly the English call these fellows the ‘Gentlemen of the
Road,’ the government letting them exercise their jurisdiction upon
travellers without giving them any great molestation. To say the truth,
they content themselves with only taking the money of those who obey
without disputing; but notwithstanding their boasted humanity, the lives
of those who endeavour to get away are not always safe. They are very
strict and severe in levying their impost; and if a man has not
wherewithal to pay them, he may run the chance of getting himself knocked
on the head for his poverty.

“About fifteen years ago, these robbers, with the view of maintaining
their rights, fixed up papers at the doors of rich people about London,
expressly forbidding all persons, of whatsoever quality or condition, from
going out of town without ten guineas and a watch about them, on pain of
death. In bad times, when there is little or nothing to be got on the
roads, these fellows assemble in gangs, to raise contributions even in
London itself; and the watchmen seldom trouble themselves to interfere
with them in their vocation.”]

Not less familiar to the people of England is the career of Jack Sheppard,
as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who has claims upon
the popular admiration which are very generally acknowledged. He did not,
like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve the poor, nor rob with an
uncouth sort of courtesy, like Turpin; but he escaped from Newgate with
the fetters on his limbs. This achievement, more than once repeated, has
encircled his felon brow with the wreath of immortality, and made him
quite a pattern thief among the populace. He was no more than twenty-three
years of age at the time of his execution, and he died much pitied by the
crowd. His adventures were the sole topics of conversation for months; the
print-shops were filled with his effigies, and a fine painting of him was
made by Sir Richard Thornhill. The following complimentary verses to the
artist appeared in the “British Journal” of November 28th, 1724.

So high was Jack’s fame that a pantomime entertainment, called “Harlequin
Jack Sheppard,” was devised by one Thurmond, and brought out with great
success at Drury Lane Theatre. All the scenes were painted from nature,
including the public-house that the robber frequented in Claremarket, and
the condemned cell from which he had made his escape in Newgate.

The Rev. Mr. Villette, the editor of the “Annals of Newgate,” published in
1754, relates a curious sermon which, he says, a friend of his heard
delivered by a street-preacher about the time of Jack’s execution. The
orator, after animadverting on the great care men took of their bodies,
and the little care they bestowed upon their souls, continued as follows,
by way of exemplifying the position:—”We have a remarkable instance
of this in a notorious malefactor, well known by the name of Jack
Sheppard. What amazing difficulties has he overcome! what astonishing
things has he performed! and all for the sake of a stinking, miserable
carcass; hardly worth the hanging! How dexterously did he pick the chain
of his padlock with a crooked nail! how manfully he burst his fetters
asunder!—climb up the chimney!—wrench out an iron bar!—break
his way through a stone wall!—make the strong door of a dark entry
fly before him, till he got upon the leads of the prison! then, fixing a
blanket to the wall with a spike, he stole out of the chapel. How
intrepidly did he descend to the top of the turner’s house!—how
cautiously pass down the stair, and make his escape to the street door!

“Oh! that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my brethren; I
don’t mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense, for I propose to
spiritualise these things. What a shame it would be if we should not think
it worth our while to take as much pains, and employ as many deep
thoughts, to save our souls as he has done to preserve his body!

“Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of
repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts!—mount
the chimney of hope!—take from thence the bar of good resolution!—break
through the stone wall of despair, and all the strongholds in the dark
entry of the valley of the shadow of death! Raise yourselves to the leads
of divine meditation!—fix the blanket of faith with the spike of the
church! let yourselves down to the turner’s house of resignation, and
descend the stairs of humility! So shall you come to the door of
deliverance from the prison of iniquity, and escape the clutches of that
old executioner the Devil!”

But popular as the name of Jack Sheppard was immediately after he had
suffered the last penalty of his crimes, it was as nothing compared to the
vast renown which he has acquired in these latter days, after the lapse of
a century and a quarter. Poets too often, are not fully appreciated till
they have been dead a hundred years, and thieves, it would appear, share
the disadvantage. But posterity is grateful if our contemporaries are not;
and Jack Sheppard, faintly praised in his own day, shines out in ours the
hero of heroes, preeminent above all his fellows. Thornhill made but one
picture of the illustrious robber, but Cruikshank has made dozens, and the
art of the engraver has multiplied them into thousands and tens of
thousands, until the populace of England have become as familiar with
Jack’s features as they are with their own. Jack, the romantic, is the
hero of three goodly volumes, and the delight of the circulating
libraries; and the theatres have been smitten with the universal
enthusiasm. Managers have set their playmongers at work, and Jack’s story
has been reproduced in the shape of drama, melodrama, and farce, at half a
dozen places of entertainment at once. Never was such a display of popular
regard for a hero as was exhibited in London in 1840 for the renowned Jack
Sheppard: robbery acquired additional lustre in the popular eye, and not
only Englishmen, but foreigners, caught the contagion; and one of the
latter, fired by the example, robbed and murdered a venerable,
unoffending, and too confiding nobleman, whom it was his especial duty to
have obeyed and protected. But he was a coward and a wretch;—it was
a solitary crime—he had not made a daring escape from dungeon walls,
or ridden from London to York, and he died amid the execrations of the
people, affording a melancholy exemplification of the trite remark, that
every man is not great who is desirous of being so.

Jonathan Wild, whose name has been immortalised by Fielding, was no
favourite with the people. He had none of the virtues which, combined with
crimes, make up the character of the great thief. He was a pitiful fellow,
who informed against his comrades, and was afraid of death. This meanness
was not to be forgiven by the crowd, and they pelted him with dirt and
stones on his way to Tyburn, and expressed their contempt by every
possible means. How different was their conduct to Turpin and Jack
Sheppard, who died in their neatest attire, with nosegays in their
button-holes, and with the courage that a crowd expects! It was
anticipated that the body of Turpin would have been delivered up to the
surgeons for dissection, and the people seeing some men very busily
employed in removing it, suddenly set upon them, rescued the body, bore it
about the town in triumph, and then buried it in a very deep grave, filled
with quick-lime, to hasten the progress of decomposition. They would not
suffer the corpse of their hero, of the man who had ridden from London to
York in four-and-twenty hours to be mangled by the rude hands of
unmannerly surgeons.

The death of Claude Duval would appear to have been no less triumphant.
Claude was a gentlemanly thief. According to Butler, in the famous ode to
his memory, he

In fact, he was the pink of politeness, and his gallantry to the fair sex
was proverbial. When he was caught at last, pent in “stone walls and
chains and iron grates,”—their grief was in proportion to his rare
merits and his great fame. Butler says, that to his dungeon

Among the noted thieves of France, there is none to compare with the
famous Aimerigot Tetenoire, who flourished in the reign of Charles VI.
This fellow was at the head of four or five hundred men, and possessed two
very strong castles in Limousin and Auvergne. There was a good deal of the
feudal baron about him, although he possessed no revenues but such as the
road afforded him. At his death he left a singular will. “I give and
bequeath,” said the robber, “one thousand five hundred francs to St.
George’s Chapel, for such repairs as it may need. To my sweet girl who so
tenderly loved me, I give two thousand five hundred; and the surplus I
give to my companions. I hope they will all live as brothers, and divide
it amicably among them. If they cannot agree, and the devil of contention
gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good
strong, sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for
what it contains, and the Devil seize the hindmost.” The people of
Auvergne still recount with admiration the daring feats of this brigand.

Of later years, the French thieves have been such unmitigated scoundrels
as to have left but little room for popular admiration. The famous
Cartouche, whose name has become synonymous with ruffian in their
language, had none of the generosity, courtesy, and devoted bravery which
are so requisite to make a robber-hero. He was born at Paris, towards the
end of the seventeenth century, and broken alive on the wheel in November
1727. He was, however, sufficiently popular to have been pitied at his
death, and afterwards to have formed the subject of a much admired drama,
which bore his name, and was played with great success in all the theatres
of France during the years 1734, 5, and 6. In our own day the French have
been more fortunate in a robber; Vidocq bids fair to rival the fame of
Turpin and Jack Sheppard. Already he has become the hero of many an
apocryphal tale—already his compatriots boast of his manifold
achievements, and express their doubts whether any other country in Europe
could produce a thief so clever, so accomplished, so gentlemanly, as
Vidocq.

Germany has its Schinderhannes, Hungary its Schubry, and Italy and Spain a
whole host of brigands, whose names and exploits are familiar as household
words in the mouths of the children and populace of those countries. The
Italian banditti are renowned over the world; and many of them are not
only very religious (after a fashion), but very charitable. Charity from
such a source is so unexpected, that the people dote upon them for it. One
of them, when he fell into the hands of the police, exclaimed, as they led
him away, “Ho fatto pitt carita!”—”I have given away more in charity
than any three convents in these provinces.” And the fellow spoke truth.

In Lombardy, the people cherish the memory of two notorious robbers, who
flourished about two centuries ago under the Spanish government. Their
story, according to Macfarlane, is contained in a little book well known
to all the children of the province, and read by them with much more gusto
than their Bibles.

Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, is a great favourite on the banks
of the river which he so long kept in awe. Many amusing stories are
related by the peasantry of the scurvy tricks he played off upon rich
Jews, or too-presuming officers of justice—of his princely
generosity, and undaunted courage. In short, they are proud of him, and
would no more consent to have the memory of his achievements dissociated
from their river than they would to have the rock of Ehrenbreitstein blown
to atoms by gunpowder.

There is another robber-hero, of whose character and exploits the people
of Germany speak admiringly. Mausch Nadel was captain of a considerable
band that infested the Rhine, Switzerland, Alsatia, and Lorraine during
the years 1824, 5, and 6. Like Jack Sheppard, he endeared himself to the
populace by his most hazardous escape from prison. Being confined, at
Bremen, in a dungeon, on the third story of the prison of that town, he
contrived to let himself down without exciting the vigilance of the
sentinels, and to swim across the Weser, though heavily laden with irons.
When about half way over, he was espied by a sentinel, who fired at him,
and shot him in the calf of the leg: but the undaunted robber struck out
manfully, reached the shore, and was out of sight before the officers of
justice could get ready their boats to follow him. He was captured again
in 1826, tried at Mayence, and sentenced to death. He was a tall, strong,
handsome man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all
over Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing
could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so
romantic, from the knife of the headsman.

Mr. Macfarlane, in speaking of Italian banditti, remarks, that the abuses
of the Catholic religion, with its confessions and absolutions, have
tended to promote crime of this description. But, he adds, more truly,
that priests and monks have not done half the mischief which has been
perpetrated by ballad-mongers and story-tellers. If he had said
play-wrights also, the list would have been complete. In fact, the
theatre, which can only expect to prosper, in a pecuniary sense, by
pandering to the tastes of the people, continually recurs to the annals of
thieves and banditti for its most favourite heroes. These theatrical
robbers; with their picturesque attire, wild haunts, jolly, reckless,
devil-may-care manners, take a wonderful hold upon the imagination, and,
whatever their advocates may say to the contrary, exercise a very
pernicious influence upon public morals. In the Memoirs of the Duke of
Guise upon the Revolution of Naples in 1647 and 1648, it is stated, that
the manners, dress, and mode of life of the Neapolitan banditti were
rendered so captivating upon the stage, that the authorities found it
absolutely necessary to forbid the representation of dramas in which they
figured, and even to prohibit their costume at the masquerades. So
numerous were the banditti at this time, that the Duke found no difficulty
in raising an army of them, to aid him in his endeavours to seize on the
throne of Naples. He thus describes them; [See also “Foreign Quarterly
Review,” vol. iv. p. 398.]

“They were three thousand five hundred men, of whom the oldest came short
of five and forty years, and the youngest was above twenty. They were all
tall and well made, with long black hair, for the most part curled, coats
of black Spanish leather, with sleeves of velvet, or cloth of gold, cloth
breeches with gold lace, most of them scarlet; girdles of velvet, laced
with gold, with two pistols on each side; a cutlass hanging at a belt,
suitably trimmed, three fingers broad and two feet long; a hawking-bag at
their girdle, and a powder-flask hung about their neck with a great silk
riband. Some of them carried firelocks, and others blunder-busses; they
had all good shoes, with silk stockings, and every one a cap of cloth of
gold, or cloth of silver, of different colours, on his head, which was
very delightful to the eye.”

“The Beggars’ Opera,” in our own country, is another instance of the
admiration that thieves excite upon the stage. Of the extraordinary
success of this piece, when first produced, the following account is given
in the notes to “The Dunciad,” and quoted by Johnson in his “Lives of the
Poets.” “This piece was received with greater applause than was ever
known. Besides being acted in London sixty-three days without
interruption, and renewed the next season with equal applause, it spread
into all the great towns of England; was played in many places to the
thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath and Bristol, &c. fifty. It made
its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed
twenty-four days successively. The ladies carried about with them the
favourite songs of it in fans, and houses were furnished with it in
screens. The fame of it was not confined to the author only. The person
who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of
the town; [Lavinia Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton.] her pictures
were engraved and sold in great numbers; her life written, books of
letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of her
sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season,
the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years.” Dr.
Johnson, in his Life of the Author, says, that Herring, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, censured the opera, as giving encouragement, not
only to vice, but to crimes, by making the highwayman the hero, and
dismissing him at last unpunished; and adds, that it was even said, that
after the exhibition the gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied. The
Doctor doubts the assertion, giving as his reason that highwaymen and
housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, and that it was not possible
for any one to imagine that he might rob with safety, because he saw
Macheath reprieved upon the stage. But if Johnson had wished to be
convinced, he might very easily have discovered that highwaymen and
housebreakers did frequent the theatre, and that nothing was more probable
than that a laughable representation of successful villany should induce
the young and the already vicious to imitate it. Besides, there is the
weighty authority of Sir John Fielding, the chief magistrate of Bow
Street, who asserted positively, and proved his assertion by the records
of his office, that the number of thieves was greatly increased at the
time when that opera was so popular.

We have another instance of the same result much nearer our own times.
Schiller’s “Rauber,” that wonderful play, written by a green youth,
perverted the taste and imagination of all the young men in Germany. An
accomplished critic of our own country (Hazlitt), speaking of this play,
says it was the first he ever read, and such was the effect it produced on
him, that “it stunned him, like a blow.” After the lapse of
five-and-twenty years he could not forget it; it was still, to use his own
words, “an old dweller in the chambers of his brain,” and he had not even
then recovered enough from it, to describe how it was. The high-minded,
metaphysical thief, its hero, was so warmly admired, that several raw
students, longing to imitate a character they thought so noble, actually
abandoned their homes and their colleges, and betook themselves to the
forests and wilds to levy contributions upon travellers. They thought they
would, like Moor, plunder the rich, and deliver eloquent soliloquies to
the setting sun or the rising moon; relieve the poor when they met them,
and drink flasks of Rhenish with their free companions in rugged mountain
passes, or in tents in the thicknesses of the forests. But a little
experience wonderfully cooled their courage; they found that real,
every-day robbers were very unlike the conventional banditti of the stage,
and that three months in prison, with bread and water for their fare, and
damp straw to lie upon, was very well to read about by their own fire
sides, but not very agreeable to undergo in their own proper persons.

Lord Byron, with his soliloquising, high-souled thieves, has, in a slight
degree, perverted the taste of the greenhorns and incipient rhymesters of
his country. As yet, however, they have shown more good sense than their
fellows of Germany, and have not taken to the woods or the highways. Much
as they admire Conrad the Corsair, they will not go to sea, and hoist the
black flag in emulation of him. By words only, and not by deeds, they
testify their admiration, and deluge the periodicals and music shops of
the hand with verses describing pirates’ and bandits’ brides, and robber
adventures of every kind.

But it is the play-wright who does most harm; and Byron has fewer sins of
this nature to answer for than Gay or Schiller, and the modern dramatizers
of Jack Sheppard. With the aid of scenery, fine dresses, and music, and
the very false notions they convey, they vitiate the public taste, not
knowing,

In the penny theatres that abound in the poor and populous districts of
London, and which are chiefly frequented by striplings of idle and
dissolute habits, tales of thieves and murderers are more admired, and
draw more crowded audiences, than any other species of representation.
There the footpad, the burglar, and the highwayman are portrayed in
unnatural colours, and give pleasant lessons in crime to their delighted
listeners. There the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce are
represented in the career of the murderer and the thief, and are applauded
in proportion to their depth and their breadth. There, whenever a crime of
unusual atrocity is committed, it is brought out afresh, with all its
disgusting incidents copied from the life, for the amusement of those who
will one day become its imitators.

With the mere reader the case is widely different; and most people have a
partiality for knowing the adventures of noted rogues. Even in fiction
they are delightful: witness the eventful story of Gil Blas de Santillane,
and of that great rascal Don Guzman d’Alfarache. Here there is no fear of
imitation. Poets, too, without doing mischief, may sing of such heroes
when they please, wakening our sympathies for the sad fate of Gilderoy, or
Macpherson the Dauntless; or celebrating in undying verse the wrongs and
the revenge of the great thief of Scotland, Rob Roy. If, by the music of
their sweet rhymes, they can convince the world that such heroes are but
mistaken philosophers, born a few ages too late, and having both a
theoretical and practical love for

the world may, perhaps, become wiser, and consent to some better
distribution of its good things, by means of which thieves may become
reconciled to the age, and the age to them. The probability, however,
seems to be, that the charmers will charm in vain, charm they ever so
wisely.

INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD.

The famous declaration of St. Paul, “that long hair was a shame unto a
man” has been made the pretext for many singular enactments, both of civil
and ecclesiastical governments. The fashion of the hair and the cut of the
beard were state questions in France and England from the establishment of
Christianity until the fifteenth century.

We find, too, that in much earlier times men were not permitted to do as
they liked with their own hair. Alexander the Great thought that the
beards of his soldiery afforded convenient handles for the enemy to lay
hold of, preparatory to cutting off their heads; and, with the view of
depriving them of this advantage, he ordered the whole of his army to be
closely shaven. His notions of courtesy towards an enemy were quite
different from those entertained by the North American Indians, amongst
whom it is held a point of honour to allow one “chivalrous lock” to grow,
that the foe, in taking the scalp, may have something to catch hold of.

At one time, long hair was the symbol of sovereignty in Europe. We learn
from Gregory of Tours that, among the successors of Clovis, it was the
exclusive privilege of the royal family to have their hair long, and
curled. The nobles, equal to kings in power, would not show any
inferiority in this respect, and wore not only their hair, but their
beards, of an enormous length. This fashion lasted, with but slight
changes, till the time of Louis the Debonnaire, but his successors, up to
Hugh Capet, wore their hair short, by way of distinction. Even the serfs
had set all regulation at defiance, and allowed their locks and beards to
grow.

At the time of the invasion of England by William the Conqueror, the
Normans wore their hair very short. Harold, in his progress towards
Hastings, sent forward spies to view the strength and number of the enemy.
They reported, amongst other things, on their return, that “the host did
almost seem to be priests, because they had all their face and both their
lips shaven.” The fashion among the English at the time was to wear the
hair long upon the head and the upper lip, but to shave the chin. When the
haughty victors had divided the broad lands of the Saxon thanes and
franklins among them, when tyranny of every kind was employed to make the
English feel that they were indeed a subdued and broken nation, the latter
encouraged the growth of their hair, that they might resemble as little as
possible their cropped and shaven masters.

This fashion was exceedingly displeasing to the clergy, and prevailed to a
considerable extent in France and Germany. Towards the end of the eleventh
century, it was decreed by the Pope, and zealously supported by the
ecclesiastical authorities all over Europe, that such persons as wore long
hair should be excommunicated while living, and not be prayed for when
dead. William of Malmesbury relates, that the famous St. Wulstan, Bishop
of Worcester, was peculiarly indignant whenever he saw a man with long
hair. He declaimed against the practice as one highly immoral, criminal,
and beastly. He continually carried a small knife in his pocket, and
whenever anybody, offending in this respect, knelt before him to receive
his blessing, he would whip it out slily, and cut off a handful, and then,
throwing it in his face, tell him to cut off all the rest, or he would go
to hell.

But fashion, which at times it is possible to move with a wisp, stands
firm against a lever; and men preferred to run the risk of damnation to
parting with the superfluity of their hair. In the time of Henry I,
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, found it necessary to republish the
famous decree of excommunication and outlawry against the offenders; but,
as the court itself had begun to patronize curls, the fulminations of the
church were unavailing. Henry I and his nobles wore their hair in long
ringlets down their backs and shoulders, and became a scandalum magnatum
in the eyes of the godly. One Serlo, the King’s chaplain, was so grieved
in spirit at the impiety of his master, that he preached a sermon from the
well-known text of St. Paul, before the assembled court, in which he drew
so dreadful a picture of the torments that awaited them in the other
world, that several of them burst into tears, and wrung their hair, as if
they would have pulled it out by the roots. Henry himself was observed to
weep. The priest, seeing the impression he had made, determined to strike
while the iron was hot, and, pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket,
cut the king’s hair in presence of them all. Several of the principal
courtiers consented to do the like, and, for a short time, long hair
appeared to be going out of fashion. But the courtiers thought, after the
first glow of their penitence had been cooled by reflection, that the
clerical Dalilah had shorn them of their strength, and, in less than six
months, they were as great sinners as ever.

Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been a monk of Bec, in
Normandy, and who had signalized himself at Rouen by his fierce opposition
to long hair, was still anxious to work a reformation in this matter. But
his pertinacity was far from pleasing to the King, who had finally made up
his mind to wear ringlets. There were other disputes, of a more serious
nature, between them; so that when the Archbishop died, the King was so
glad to be rid of him, that he allowed the see to remain vacant for five
years. Still the cause had other advocates, and every pulpit in the land
resounded with anathemas against that disobedient and long-haired
generation. But all was of no avail. Stowe, in writing of this period,
asserts, on the authority of some more ancient chronicler, “that men,
forgetting their birth, transformed themselves, by the length of their
haires, into the semblance of woman kind;” and that when their hair
decayed from age, or other causes, “they knit about their heads certain
rolls and braidings of false hair.” At last accident turned the tide of
fashion. A knight of the court, who was exceedingly proud of his beauteous
locks, dreamed one night that, as he lay in bed, the devil sprang upon
him, and endeavoured to choke him with his own hair. He started in
affright, and actually found that he had a great quantity of hair in his
mouth. Sorely stricken in conscience, and looking upon the dream as a
warning from Heaven, he set about the work of reformation, and cut off his
luxuriant tresses the same night. The story was soon bruited abroad; of
course it was made the most of by the clergy, and the knight, being a man
of influence and consideration, and the acknowledged leader of the
fashion, his example, aided by priestly exhortations, was very generally
imitated. Men appeared almost as decent as St. Wulstan himself could have
wished, the dream of a dandy having proved more efficacious than the
entreaties of a saint. But, as Stowe informs us, “scarcely was one year
past, when all that thought themselves courtiers fell into the former
vice, and contended with women in their long haires.” Henry, the King,
appears to have been quite uninfluenced by the dreams of others, for even
his own would not induce him a second time to undergo a cropping from
priestly shears. It is said, that he was much troubled at this time by
disagreeable visions. Having offended the church in this and other
respects, he could get no sound refreshing sleep, and used to imagine that
he saw all the bishops, abbots, and monks of every degree, standing around
his bed-side, and threatening to belabour him with their pastoral staves;
which sight, we are told, so frightened him, that he often started naked
out of his bed, and attacked the phantoms sword in hand. Grimbalde, his
physician, who, like most of his fraternity at that day, was an
ecclesiastic, never hinted that his dreams were the result of a bad
digestion, but told him to shave his head, be reconciled to the Church,
and reform himself with alms and prayer. But he would not take this good
advice, and it was not until he had been nearly drowned a year afterwards,
in a violent storm at sea, that he repented of his evil ways, cut his hair
short, and paid proper deference to the wishes of the clergy.

In France, the thunders of the Vatican with regard to long curly hair were
hardly more respected than in England. Louis VII. however, was more
obedient than his brother-king, and cropped himself as closely as a monk,
to the great sorrow of all the gallants of his court. His Queen, the gay,
haughty, and pleasure-seeking Eleanor of Guienne, never admired him in
this trim, and continually reproached him with imitating, not only the
headdress, but the asceticism of the monks. From this cause, a coldness
arose between them. The lady proving at last unfaithful to her shaven and
indifferent lord, they were divorced, and the Kings of France lost the
rich provinces of Guienne and Poitou, which were her dowry. She soon after
bestowed her hand and her possessions upon Henry Duke of Normandy,
afterwards Henry II of England, and thus gave the English sovereigns that
strong footing in France which was for so many centuries the cause of such
long and bloody wars between the nations.

When the Crusades had drawn all the smart young fellows into Palestine,
the clergy did not find it so difficult to convince the staid burghers who
remained in Europe, of the enormity of long hair. During the absence of
Richard Coeur de Lion, his English subjects not only cut their hair close,
but shaved their faces. William Fitzosbert, or Long-beard, the great
demagogue of that day, reintroduced among the people who claimed to be of
Saxon origin the fashion of long hair. He did this with the view of making
them as unlike as possible to the citizens and the Normans. He wore his
own beard hanging down to his waist, from whence the name by which he is
best known to posterity.

The Church never showed itself so great an enemy to the beard as to long
hair on the head. It generally allowed fashion to take its own course,
both with regard to the chin and the upper lip. This fashion varied
continually; for we find that, in little more than a century after the
time of Richard I, when beards were short, that they had again become so
long as to be mentioned in the famous epigram made by the Scots who
visited London in 1327, when David, son of Robert Bruce, was married to
Joan, the sister of King Edward. This epigram, which was stuck on the
church-door of St. Peter Stangate, ran as follows—

When the Emperor Charles V. ascended the throne of Spain, he had no beard.
It was not to be expected that the obsequious parasites who always
surround a monarch, could presume to look more virile than their master.
Immediately all the courtiers appeared beardless, with the exception of
such few grave old men as had outgrown the influence of fashion, and who
had determined to die bearded as they had lived. Sober people in general
saw this revolution with sorrow and alarm, and thought that every manly
virtue would be banished with the beard. It became at the time a common
saying,—

In France, also, the beard fell into disrepute after the death of Henry
IV, from the mere reason that his successor was too young to have one.
Some of the more immediate friends of the great Bearnais, and his minister
Sully among the rest, refused to part with their beards, notwithstanding
the jeers of the new generation.

Who does not remember the division of England into the two great parties
of Roundheads and Cavaliers? In those days, every species of vice and
iniquity was thought by the Puritans to lurk in the long curly tresses of
the Monarchists, while the latter imagined that their opponents were as
destitute of wit, of wisdom, and of virtue, as they were of hair. A man’s
locks were the symbol of his creed, both in politics and religion. The
more abundant the hair, the more scant the faith; and the balder the head,
the more sincere the piety.

But among all the instances of the interference of governments with men’s
hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but for its success
is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time, fashion had condemned
the beard in every other country in Europe, and with a voice more potent
than Popes or Emperors, had banished it from civilized society. But this
only made the Russians cling more fondly to their ancient ornament, as a
mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they hated. Peter, however
resolved that they should be shaven. If he had been a man deeply read in
history, he might have hesitated before he attempted so despotic an attack
upon the time-hallowed customs and prejudices of his countrymen; but he
was not. He did not know or consider the danger of the innovation; he only
listened to the promptings of his own indomitable will, and his fiat went
forth, that not only the army, but all ranks of citizens, from the nobles
to the serfs, should shave their beards. A certain time was given, that
people might get over the first throes of their repugnance, after which
every man who chose to retain his beard was to pay a tax of one hundred
roubles. The priests and the serfs were put on a lower footing, and
allowed to retain theirs upon payment of a copeck every time they passed
the gate of a city. Great discontent existed in consequence, but the
dreadful fate of the Strelitzes was too recent to be forgotten, and
thousands who had the will had not the courage to revolt. As is well
remarked by a writer in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” they thought it
wiser to cut off their beards than to run the risk of incensing a man who
would make no scruple in cutting off their heads. Wiser, too, than the
popes and bishops of a former age, he did not threaten them with eternal
damnation, but made them pay in hard cash the penalty of their
disobedience. For many years, a very considerable revenue was collected
from this source. The collectors gave in receipt for its payment a small
copper coin, struck expressly for the purpose, and called the
“borodovaia,” or “the bearded.” On one side it bore the figure of a nose,
mouth, and moustachios, with a long bushy beard, surmounted by the words,
“Deuyee Vyeatee,” “money received;” the whole encircled by a wreath, and
stamped with the black eagle of Russia. On the reverse, it bore the date
of the year. Every man who chose to wear a beard was obliged to produce
this receipt on his entry into a town. Those who were refractory, and
refused to pay the tax, were thrown into prison.

Since that day, the rulers of modern Europe have endeavoured to persuade,
rather than to force, in all matters pertaining to fashion. The Vatican
troubles itself no more about beards or ringlets, and men may become hairy
as bears, if such is their fancy, without fear of excommunication or
deprivation of their political rights. Folly has taken a new start, and
cultivates the moustachio.

Even upon this point governments will not let men alone. Religion as yet
has not meddled with it; but perhaps it will; and politics already
influence it considerably. Before the revolution of 1830, neither the
French nor Belgian citizens were remarkable for their moustachios; but,
after that event, there was hardly a shopkeeper either in Paris or
Brussels whose upper lip did not suddenly become hairy with real or mock
moustachios. During a temporary triumph gained by the Dutch soldiers over
the citizens of Louvain, in October 1830, it became a standing joke
against the patriots, that they shaved their faces clean immediately; and
the wits of the Dutch army asserted, that they had gathered moustachios
enough from the denuded lips of the Belgians to stuff mattresses for all
the sick and wounded in their hospital.

The last folly of this kind is still more recent. In the German
newspapers, of August 1838, appeared an ordonnance, signed by the King of
Bavaria, forbidding civilians, on any pretence whatever, to wear
moustachios, and commanding the police and other authorities to arrest,
and cause to be shaved, the offending parties. “Strange to say,” adds “Le
Droit,” the journal from which this account is taken, “moustachios
disappeared immediately, like leaves from the trees in autumn; everybody
made haste to obey the royal order, and not one person was arrested.”

The King of Bavaria, a rhymester of some celebrity, has taken a good many
poetical licences in his time. His licence in this matter appears neither
poetical nor reasonable. It is to be hoped that he will not take it into
his royal head to make his subjects shave theirs; nothing but that is
wanting to complete their degradation.

DUELS AND ORDEALS

Most writers, in accounting for the origin of duelling, derive it from the
warlike habits of those barbarous nations who overran Europe in the early
centuries of the Christian era, and who knew no mode so effectual for
settling their differences as the point of the sword. In fact, duelling,
taken in its primitive and broadest sense, means nothing more than
combatting, and is the universal resort of all wild animals, including
man, to gain or defend their possessions, or avenge their insults. Two
dogs who tear each other for a bone, or two bantams fighting on a dunghill
for the love of some beautiful hen, or two fools on Wimbledon Common,
shooting at each other to satisfy the laws of offended honour, stand on
the same footing in this respect, and are, each and all, mere duellists.
As civilization advanced, the best informed men naturally grew ashamed of
such a mode of adjusting disputes, and the promulgation of some sort of
laws for obtaining redress for injuries was the consequence. Still there
were many cases in which the allegations of an accuser could not be
rebutted by any positive proof on the part of the accused; and in all
these, which must have been exceedingly numerous in the early stages of
European society, the combat was resorted to. From its decision there was
no appeal. God was supposed to nerve the arm of the combatant whose cause
was just, and to grant him the victory over his opponent. As Montesquieu
well remarks, [“Esprit des Loix,” liv. xxviii. chap. xvii.] this belief
was not unnatural among a people just emerging from barbarism. Their
manners being wholly warlike, the man deficient in courage, the prime
virtue of his fellows, was not unreasonably suspected of other vices
besides cowardice, which is generally found to be co-existent with
treachery. He, therefore, who showed himself most valiant in the
encounter, was absolved by public opinion from any crime with which he
might be charged. As a necessary consequence, society would have been
reduced to its original elements, if the men of thought, as distinguished
from the men of action, had not devised some means for taming the unruly
passions of their fellows. With this view, governments commenced by
restricting within the narrowest possible limits the cases in which it was
lawful to prove or deny guilt by the single combat. By the law of
Gondebaldus, King of the Burgundians, passed in the year 501, the proof by
combat was allowed in all legal proceedings, in lieu of swearing. In the
time of Charlemagne, the Burgundian practice had spread over the empire of
the Francs, and not only the suitors for justice, but the witnesses, and
even the judges, were obliged to defend their cause, their evidence, or
their decision, at the point of the sword. Louis the Debonnaire, his
successor, endeavoured to remedy the growing evil, by permitting the duel
only in appeals of felony, in civil cases, or issue joined in a writ of
right, and in cases of the court of chivalry, or attacks upon a man’s
knighthood. None were exempt from these trials, but women, the sick and
the maimed, and persons under fifteen or above sixty years of age.
Ecclesiastics were allowed to produce champions in their stead. This
practice, in the course of time, extended to all trials of civil and
criminal cases, which had to be decided by battle.

The clergy, whose dominion was an intellectual one, never approved of a
system of jurisprudence which tended so much to bring all things under the
rule of the strongest arm. From the first they set their faces against
duelling, and endeavoured, as far as the prejudices of their age would
allow them, to curb the warlike spirit, so alien from the principles of
religion. In the Council of Valentia, and afterwards in the Council of
Trent, they excommunicated all persons engaged in duelling, and not only
them, but even the assistants and spectators, declaring the custom to be
hellish and detestable, and introduced by the Devil for the destruction
both of body and soul. They added, also, that princes who connived at
duels, should be deprived of all temporal power, jurisdiction, and
dominion over the places where they had permitted them to be fought. It
will be seen hereafter that this clause only encouraged the practice which
it was intended to prevent.

But it was the blasphemous error of these early ages to expect that the
Almighty, whenever he was called upon, would work a miracle in favour of a
person unjustly accused. The priesthood, in condemning the duel, did not
condemn the principle on which it was founded. They still encouraged the
popular belief of Divine interference in all the disputes or differences
that might arise among nations or individuals. It was the very same
principle that regulated the ordeals, which, with all their influence,
they supported against the duel. By the former, the power of deciding the
guilt or innocence was vested wholly in their hands, while, by the latter,
they enjoyed no power or privilege at all. It is not to be wondered at,
that for this reason, if for no other, they should have endeavoured to
settle all differences by the peaceful mode. While that prevailed, they
were as they wished to be, the first party in the state; but while the
strong arm of individual prowess was allowed to be the judge in all
doubtful cases, their power and influence became secondary to those of
nobility.

Thus, it was not the mere hatred of bloodshed which induced them to launch
the thunderbolts excommunication against the combatants; it a desire to
retain the power, which, to do them justice, they were, in those times,
the persons best qualified to wield. The germs of knowledge and
civilization lay within the bounds of their order; for they were the
representatives of the intellectual, as the nobility were of the physical
power of man. To centralize this power in the Church, and make it the
judge of the last resort in all appeals, both in civil and criminal cases,
they instituted five modes of trial, the management of which lay wholly in
their hands. These were the oath upon the Evangelists; the ordeal of the
cross, and the fire ordeal, for persons in the higher ranks; the water
ordeal, for the humbler classes; and, lastly, the Corsned, or bread and
cheese ordeal, for members of their own body.

The oath upon the Evangelists was taken in the following manner: the
accused who was received to this proof, says Paul Hay, Count du Chastelet,
in his Memoirs of Bertrand du Guesclin, swore upon a copy of the New
Testament, and on the relics of the holy martyrs, or on their tombs, that
he was innocent of the crime imputed to him. He was also obliged to find
twelve persons, of acknowledged probity, who should take oath at the same
time, that they believed him innocent. This mode of trial led to very
great abuses, especially in cases of disputed inheritance, where the
hardest swearer was certain of the victory. This abuse was one of the
principal causes which led to the preference given to the trial by battle.
It is not all surprising that a feudal baron, or captain of the early
ages, should have preferred the chances of a fair fight with his opponent,
to a mode by which firm perjury would always be successful.

The trial by, or judgment of, the cross, which Charlemagne begged his sons
to have recourse to, in case of disputes arising between them, was
performed thus:—When a person accused of any crime had declared his
innocence upon oath, and appealed to the cross for its judgment in his
favour, he was brought into the church, before the altar. The priests
previously prepared two sticks exactly like one another, upon one of which
was carved a figure of the cross. They were both wrapped up with great
care and many ceremonies, in a quantity of fine wool, and laid upon the
altar, or on the relics of the saints. A solemn prayer was then offered up
to God, that he would be pleased to discover, by the judgment of his holy
cross, whether the accused person were innocent or guilty. A priest then
approached the altar, and took up one of the sticks, and the assistants
unswathed it reverently. If it was marked with the cross, the accused
person was innocent; if unmarked, he was guilty. It would be unjust to
assert, that the judgments thus delivered were, in all cases, erroneous;
and it would be absurd to believe that they were left altogether to
chance. Many true judgments were doubtless given, and, in all probability,
most conscientiously; for we cannot but believe that the priests
endeavoured beforehand to convince themselves by secret inquiry and a
strict examination of the circumstances, whether the appellant were
innocent or guilty, and that they took up the crossed or uncrossed stick
accordingly. Although, to all other observers, the sticks, as enfolded in
the wool, might appear exactly similar, those who enwrapped them could,
without any difficulty, distinguish the one from the other.

By the fire-ordeal the power of deciding was just as unequivocally left in
their hands. It was generally believed that fire would not burn the
innocent, and the clergy, of course, took care that the innocent, or such
as it was their pleasure or interest to declare so, should be so warned
before undergoing the ordeal, as to preserve themselves without any
difficulty from the fire. One mode of ordeal was to place red-hot
ploughshares on the ground at certain distances, and then, blindfolding
the accused person, make him walk barefooted over them. If he stepped
regularly in the vacant spaces, avoiding the fire, he was adjudged
innocent; if he burned himself, he was declared guilty. As none but the
clergy interfered with the arrangement of the ploughshares, they could
always calculate beforehand the result of the ordeal. To find a person
guilty, they had only to place them at irregular distances, and the
accused was sure to tread upon one of them. When Emma, the wife of King
Ethelred, and mother of Edward the Confessor, was accused of a guilty
familiarity with Alwyn, Bishop of Winchester, she cleared her character in
this manner. The reputation, not only of their order, but of a queen,
being at stake, a verdict of guilty was not to be apprehended from any
ploughshares which priests had the heating of. This ordeal was called the
Judicium Dei, and sometimes the Vulgaris Purgatio, and might also be tried
by several other methods. One was to hold in the hand, unhurt, a piece of
red-hot iron, of the weight of one, two, or three pounds. When we read not
only that men with hard hands, but women of softer and more delicate skin,
could do this with impunity, we must be convinced that the hands were
previously rubbed with some preservative, or that the apparently hot iron
was merely cold iron painted red. Another mode was to plunge the naked arm
into a caldron of boiling water. The priests then enveloped it in several
folds of linen and flannel, and kept the patient confined within the
church, and under their exclusive care, for three days. If, at the end of
that time, the arm appeared without a scar, the innocence of the accused
person was firmly established. [Very similar to this is the fire-ordeal of
the modern Hindoos, which is thus described in Forbes’s “Oriental
Memoirs,” vol. i. c. xi.—”When a man, accused of a capital crime,
chooses to undergo the ordeal trial, he is closely confined for several
days; his right hand and arm are covered with thick wax-cloth, tied up and
sealed, in the presence of proper officers, to prevent deceit. In the
English districts the covering was always sealed with the Company’s arms,
and the prisoner placed under an European guard. At the time fixed for the
ordeal, a caldron of oil is placed over a fire; when it boils, a piece of
money is dropped into the vessel; the prisoner’s arm is unsealed, and
washed in the presence of his judges and accusers. During this part of the
ceremony, the attendant Brahmins supplicate the Deity. On receiving their
benediction, the accused plunges his hand into the boiling fluid, and
takes out the coin. The arm is afterwards again Sealed up until the time
appointed for a re-examination. The seal is then broken: if no blemish
appears, the prisoner is declared innocent; if the contrary, he suffers
the punishment due to his crime.” * * * On this trial the accused thus
addresses the element before plunging his hand into the boiling oil:—”Thou,
O fire! pervadest all things. O cause of purity! who givest evidence of
virtue and of sin, declare the truth in this my hand!” If no juggling were
practised, the decisions by this ordeal would be all the same way; but, as
some are by this means declared guilty, and others innocent, it is clear
that the Brahmins, like the Christian priests of the middle ages, practise
some deception in saving those whom they wish to be thought guiltless.]

As regards the water-ordeal, the same trouble was not taken. It was a
trial only for the poor and humble, and, whether they sank or swam, was
thought of very little consequence. Like the witches of more modern times,
the accused were thrown into a pond or river; if they sank, and were
drowned, their surviving friends had the consolation of knowing that they
were innocent; if they swam, they were guilty. In either case society was
rid of them.

But of all the ordeals, that which the clergy reserved for themselves was
the one least likely to cause any member of their corps to be declared
guilty. The most culpable monster in existence came off clear when tried
by this method. It was called the Corsned, and was thus performed. A piece
of barley bread and a piece of cheese were laid upon the altar, and the
accused priest, in his full canonicals, and surrounded by all the pompous
adjuncts of Roman ceremony, pronounced certain conjurations, and prayed
with great fervency for several minutes. The burden of his prayer was,
that if he were guilty of the crime laid to his charge, God would send his
angel Gabriel to stop his throat, that he might not be able to swallow the
bread and cheese. There is no instance upon record of a priest having been
choked in this manner. [An ordeal very like this is still practised in
India. Consecrated rice is the article chosen, instead of bread and
cheese. Instances are not rare in which, through the force of imagination,
guilty persons are not able to swallow a single grain. Conscious of their
crime, and fearful of the punishment of Heaven, they feel a suffocating
sensation in their throat when they attempt it, and they fall on their
knees, and confess all that is laid to their charge. The same thing, no
doubt, would have happened with the bread and cheese of the Roman church,
if it had been applied to any others but ecclesiastics. The latter had too
much wisdom to be caught in a trap of their own setting.]

When, under Pope Gregory VII, it was debated whether the Gregorian chant
should be introduced into Castile, instead of the Musarabic, given by St.
Isidore, of Seville, to the churches of that kingdom, very much ill
feeling was excited. The churches refused to receive the novelty, and it
was proposed that the affair should be decided by a battle between two
champions, one chosen from each side. The clergy would not consent to a
mode of settlement which they considered impious, but had no objection to
try the merits of each chant by the fire ordeal. A great fire was
accordingly made, and a book of the Gregorian and one of the Musarabic
chant were thrown into it, that the flames might decide which was most
agreeable to God by refusing to burn it. Cardinal Baronius, who says he
was an eye-witness of the miracle, relates, that the book of the Gregorian
chant was no sooner laid upon the fire, than it leaped out uninjured,
visibly, and with a great noise. Every one present thought that the saints
had decided in favour of Pope Gregory. After a slight interval, the fire
was extinguished; but, wonderful to relate! the other book of St. Isidore
was found covered with ashes, but not injured in the slightest degree. The
flames had not even warmed it. Upon this it was resolved, that both were
alike agreeable to God, and that they should be used by turns in all the
churches of Seville? [Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, par Paul
Hay du Chastelet. Livre i. chap. xix.]

If the ordeals had been confined to questions like this, the laity would
have had little or no objection to them; but when they were introduced as
decisive in all the disputes that might arise between man and man, the
opposition of all those whose prime virtue was personal bravery, was
necessarily excited. In fact, the nobility, from a very early period,
began to look with jealous eyes upon them. They were not slow to perceive
their true purport, which was no other than to make the Church the last
court of appeal in all cases, both civil and criminal: and not only did
the nobility prefer the ancient mode of single combat from this cause, in
itself a sufficient one, but they clung to it because an acquittal gained
by those displays of courage and address which the battle afforded, was
more creditable in the eyes of their compeers, than one which it required
but little or none of either to accomplish. To these causes may be added
another, which was, perhaps, more potent than either, in raising the
credit of the judicial combat at the expense of the ordeal. The noble
institution of chivalry was beginning to take root, and, notwithstanding
the clamours of the clergy, war was made the sole business of life, and
the only elegant pursuit of the aristocracy. The fine spirit of honour was
introduced, any attack upon which was only to be avenged in the lists,
within sight of applauding crowds, whose verdict of approbation was far
more gratifying than the cold and formal acquittal of the ordeal.
Lothaire, the son of Louis I, abolished that by fire and the trial of the
cross within his dominions; but in England they were allowed so late as
the time of Henry III, in the early part of whose reign they were
prohibited by an order of council. In the mean time, the Crusades had
brought the institution of chivalry to the full height of perfection. The
chivalric spirit soon achieved the downfall of the ordeal system, and
established the judicial combat on a basis too firm to be shaken. It is
true that with the fall of chivalry, as an institution, fell the
tournament, and the encounter in the lists; but the duel, their offspring,
has survived to this day, defying the efforts of sages and philosophers to
eradicate it. Among all the errors bequeathed to us by a barbarous age, it
has proved the most pertinacious. It has put variance between men’s reason
and their honour; put the man of sense on a level with the fool, and made
thousands who condemn it submit to it, or practise it. Those who are
curious to see the manner in which these combats were regulated, may
consult the learned Montesquieu, where they will find a copious summary of
the code of ancient duelling. [“Esprit des Loix,” livre xxviii. chap.
xxv.] Truly does he remark, in speaking of the clearness and excellence of
the arrangements, that, as there were many wise matters which were
conducted in a very foolish manner, so there were many foolish matters
conducted very wisely. No greater exemplification of it could be given,
than the wise and religious rules of the absurd and blasphemous trial by
battle.

In the ages that intervened between the Crusades and the new era that was
opened out by the invention of gunpowder and printing, a more rational
system of legislation took root. The inhabitants of cities, engaged in the
pursuits of trade and industry, were content to acquiesce in the decisions
of their judges and magistrates whenever any differences arose among them.
Unlike the class above them, their habits and manners did not lead them to
seek the battle-field on every slight occasion. A dispute as to the price
of a sack of corn, a bale of broad-cloth, or a cow, could be more
satisfactorily adjusted before the mayor or bailiff of their district.
Even the martial knights and nobles, quarrelsome as they were, began to
see that the trial by battle would lose its dignity and splendour if too
frequently resorted to. Governments also shared this opinion, and on
several occasions restricted the cases in which it was legal to proceed to
this extremity. In France, before the time of Louis IX, duels were
permitted only in cases of Lese Majesty, Rape, Incendiarism,
Assassination, and Burglary. Louis IX, by taking off all restriction, made
them legal in civil eases. This was not found to work well, and, in 1303,
Philip the Fair judged it necessary to confine them, in criminal matters,
to state offences, rape, and incendiarism; and in civil cases, to
questions of disputed inheritance. Knighthood was allowed to be the best
judge of its own honour, and might defend or avenge it as often as
occasion arose.

Among the earliest duels upon record, is a very singular one that took
place in the reign of Louis II (A.D. 878). Ingelgerius, Count of
Gastinois, was one morning discovered by his Countess dead in bed at her
side. Gontran, a relation of the Count, accused the Countess of having
murdered her husband, to whom, he asserted, she had long been unfaithful,
and challenged her to produce a champion to do battle in her behalf, that
he might establish her guilt by killing him.[Memoires de Brantome touchant
les Duels.] All the friends and relatives of the Countess believed in her
innocence; but Gontran was so stout and bold and renowned a warrior, that
no one dared to meet him, for which, as Brantome quaintly says, “Mauvais
et poltrons parens estaient.” The unhappy Countess began to despair, when
a champion suddenly appeared in the person of Ingelgerius, Count of Anjou,
a boy of sixteen years of age, who had been held by the Countess on the
baptismal font, and received her husband’s name. He tenderly loved his
godmother, and offered to do battle in her cause against any and every
opponent. The King endeavoured to persuade the generous boy from his
enterprise, urging the great strength, tried skill, and invincible courage
of the challenger; but he persisted in his resolution, to the great sorrow
of all the court, who said it was a cruel thing to permit so brave and
beautiful a child to rush to such butchery and death.

When the lists were prepared, the Countess duly acknowledged her champion,
and the combatants commenced the onset. Gontran rode so fiercely at his
antagonist, and hit him on the shield with such impetuosity, that he lost
his own balance and rolled to the ground. The young Count, as Gontran
fell, passed his lance through his body, and then dismounting, cut off his
head, which, Brantome says, “he presented to the King, who received it
most graciously, and was very joyful, as much so as if any one had made
him a present of a city.” The innocence of the Countess was then
proclaimed with great rejoicings; and she kissed her godson, and wept over
his neck with joy, in the presence of all the assembly.

When the Earl of Essex was accused, by Robert de Montfort, before King
Henry II, in 1162, of having traitorously suffered the royal standard of
England to fall from his hands in a skirmish with the Welsh, at Coleshill,
five years previously, the latter offered to prove the truth of the charge
by single combat. The Earl of Essex accepted the challenge, and the lists
were prepared near Reading. An immense concourse of persons assembled to
witness the battle. Essex at first fought stoutly, but, losing his temper
and self-command, he gave an advantage to his opponent, which soon decided
the struggle. He was unhorsed, and so severely wounded, that all present
thought he was dead. At the solicitation of his relatives, the monks of
the Abbey of Reading were allowed to remove the body for interment, and
Montfort was declared the victor. Essex, however, was not dead, but
stunned only, and, under the care of the monks, recovered in a few weeks
from his bodily injuries. The wounds of his mind were not so easily
healed. Though a loyal and brave subject, the whole realm believed him a
traitor and a coward because he had been vanquished. He could not brook to
return to the world deprived of the good opinion of his fellows; he,
therefore, made himself a monk, and passed the remainder of his days
within the walls of the Abbey.

Du Chastelet relates a singular duel that was proposed in Spain.[Histoire
de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, livre i. chap. xix.] A Christian
gentleman of Seville sent a challenge to a Moorish cavalier, offering to
prove against him, with whatever weapons he might choose, that the
religion of Jesus Christ was holy and divine, and that of Mahomet impious
and damnable. The Spanish prelates did not choose that Christianity should
be com promised within their jurisdiction by the result of any such
combat, and they commanded the knight, under pain of excommunication, to
withdraw the challenge.

The same author relates, that under Otho I a question arose among
jurisconsults, viz. whether grandchildren, who had lost their father,
should share equally with their uncles in the property of their
grandfather, at the death of the latter. The difficulty of this question
was found so insurmountable, that none of the lawyers of that day could
resolve it. It was at last decreed, that it should be decided by single
combat. Two champions were accordingly chosen; one for, and the other
against, the claims of the little ones. After a long struggle, the
champion of the uncles was unhorsed and slain; and it was, therefore,
decided, that the right of the grandchildren was established, and that
they should enjoy the same portion of their grandfather’s possessions that
their father would have done had he been alive.

Upon pretexts, just as frivolous as these, duels continued to be fought in
most of the countries of Europe during the whole of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. A memorable instance of the slightness of the pretext
on which a man could be forced to fight a duel to the death, occurs in the
Memoirs of the brave Constable, Du Guesclin. The advantage he had
obtained, in a skirmish before Rennes, against William Brembre, an English
captain, so preyed on the spirits of William Troussel, the chosen friend
and companion of the latter, that nothing would satisfy him but a mortal
combat with the Constable. The Duke of Lancaster, to whom Troussel applied
for permission to fight the great Frenchman, forbade the battle, as not
warranted by the circumstances. Troussel nevertheless burned with a fierce
desire to cross his weapon with Du Guesclin, and sought every occasion to
pick a quarrel with him. Having so good a will for it, of course he found
a way. A relative of his had been taken prisoner by the Constable, in
whose hands he remained till he was able to pay his ransom. Troussel
resolved to make a quarrel out of this, and despatched a messenger to Du
Guesclin, demanding the release of his prisoner, and offering a bond, at a
distant date, for the payment of the ransom. Du Guesclin, who had received
intimation of the hostile purposes of the Englishman, sent back word, that
he would not accept his bond, neither would he release his prisoner, until
the full amount of his ransom was paid. As soon as this answer was
received, Troussel sent a challenge to the Constable, demanding reparation
for the injury he had done his honour, by refusing his bond, and offering
a mortal combat, to be fought three strokes with the lance, three with the
sword, and three with the dagger. Du Guesclin, although ill in bed with
the ague, accepted the challenge, and gave notice to the Marshal
d’Andreghem, the King’s Lieutenant-General in Lower Normandy, that he
might fix the day and the place of combat. The Marshal made all necessary
arrangements, upon condition that he who was beaten should pay a hundred
florins of gold to feast the nobles and gentlemen who were witnesses of
the encounter.

The Duke of Lancaster was very angry with his captain, and told him, that
it would be a shame to his knighthood and his nation, if he forced on a
combat with the brave Du Guesclin, at a time when he was enfeebled by
disease and stretched on the couch of suffering. Upon these
representations, Troussel, ashamed of himself, sent notice to Du Guesclin
that he was willing to postpone the duel until such time as he should be
perfectly recovered. Du Guesclin replied, that he could not think of
postponing the combat, after all the nobility had received notice of it;
that he had sufficient strength left, not only to meet, but to conquer
such an opponent as he was; and that, if he did not make his appearance in
the lists at the time appointed, he would publish him everywhere as a man
unworthy to be called a knight, or to wear an honourable sword by his
side. Troussel carried this haughty message to the Duke of Lancaster, who
immediately gave permission for the battle.

On the day appointed, the two combatants appeared in the lists, in the
presence of several thousand spectators. Du Guesclin was attended by the
flower of the French nobility, including the Marshal de Beaumanoir,
Olivier de Mauny, Bertrand de Saint Pern, and the Viscount de la Belliere,
while the Englishman appeared with no more than the customary retinue of
two seconds, two squires, two coutilliers, or daggermen, and two
trumpeters. The first onset was unfavourable to the Constable: he received
so heavy a blow on his shield-arm, that he fell forward to the left, upon
his horse’s neck, and, being weakened by his fever, was nearly thrown to
the ground. All his friends thought he could never recover himself, and
began to deplore his ill fortune; but Du Guesclin collected his energies
for a decisive effort, and, at the second charge, aimed a blow at the
shoulder of his enemy, which felled him to the earth, mortally wounded. He
then sprang from his horse, sword in hand, with the intention of cutting
off the head of his fallen foe, when the Marshal D’Andreghem threw a
golden wand into the arena, as a signal that hostilities should cease. Du
Guesclin was proclaimed the victor, amid the joyous acclamations of the
crowd, and retiring, left the field to the meaner combatants, who were
afterwards to make sport for the people. Four English and as many French
squires fought for some time with pointless lances, when the French,
gaining the advantage, the sports were declared at an end.

In the time of Charles VI, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, a
famous duel was ordered by the Parliament of Paris. The Sieur de Carrouges
being absent in the Holy Land, his lady was violated by the Sieur Legris.
Carrouges, on his return, challenged Legris to mortal combat, for the
twofold crime of violation and slander, inasmuch as he had denied his
guilt, by asserting that the lady was a willing party. The lady’s
asseverations of innocence were held to be no evidence by the Parliament,
and the duel was commanded with all the ceremonies. “On the day
appointed,” says Brantome, [Memoires de Brantome touchant les Duels.] “the
lady came to witness the spectacle in her chariot; but the King made her
descend, judging her unworthy, because she was criminal in his eyes till
her innocence was proved, and caused her to stand upon a scaffold to await
the mercy of God and this judgment by the battle. After a short struggle,
the Sieur de Carrouges overthrew his enemy, and made him confess both the
rape and the slander. He was then taken to the gallows and hanged in the
presence of the multitude; while the innocence of the lady was proclaimed
by the heralds, and recognized by her husband, the King, and all the
spectators.”

Numerous battles, of a similar description, constantly took place, until
the unfortunate issue of one encounter of the kind led the French King,
Henry II, to declare solemnly, that he would never again permit any such
encounter, whether it related to a civil or criminal case, or the honour
of a gentleman.

This memorable combat was fought in the year 1547. Francois de Vivonne,
Lord of La Chataigneraie, and Guy de Chabot, Lord of Jarnac, had been
friends from their early youth, and were noted at the court of Francis I
for the gallantry of their bearing and the magnificence of their retinue.
Chataigneraie, who knew that his friend’s means were not very ample, asked
him one day, in confidence, how it was that he contrived to be so well
provided? Jarnac replied, that his father had married a young and
beautiful woman, who, loving the son far better than the sire, supplied
him with as much money as he desired. La Chataigneraie betrayed the base
secret to the Dauphin, the Dauphin to the King, the King to his courtiers,
and the courtiers to all their acquaintance. In a short time it reached
the ears of the old Lord de Jarnac, who immediately sent for his son, and
demanded to know in what manner the report had originated, and whether he
had been vile enough not only to carry on such a connexion, but to boast
of it? De Jarnac indignantly denied that he had ever said so, or given
reason to the world to say so, and requested his father to accompany him
to court, and confront him with his accuser, that he might see the manner
in which he would confound him. They went accordingly, and the younger De
Jarnac, entering a room where the Dauphin, La Chataigneraie, and several
courtiers were present, exclaimed aloud, “That whoever had asserted, that
he maintained a criminal connexion with his mother-in-law, was a liar and
a coward!” Every eye was turned to the Dauphin and La Chataigneraie, when
the latter stood forward, and asserted, that De Jarnac had himself avowed
that such was the fact, and he would extort from his lips another
confession of it. A case like this could not be met or rebutted by any
legal proof, and the royal council ordered that it should be decided by
single combat. The King, however, set his face against the duel [Although
Francis showed himself in this case an enemy to duelling, yet, in his own
case, he had not the same objection. Every reader of history must remember
his answer to the challenge of the Emperor Charles V. The Emperor wrote
that he had failed in his word, and that he would sustain their quarrel
single-handed against him. Francis replied, that he lied—qu’il en
avait menti par la gorge, and that he was ready to meet him in single
combat whenever and wherever he pleased.] and forbade them both, under
pain of his high displeasure, to proceed any further in the matter. But
Francis died in the following year, and the Dauphin, now Henry II, who was
himself compromised, resolved that the combat should take place. The lists
were prepared in the court-yard of the chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, and
the 10th of July 1547 was appointed for the encounter. The cartels of the
combatants, which are preserved in the “Memoires de Castelnau,” were as
follow:—

“Cartel of Francois de Vivonne, Lord of La Chataigneraie.

“Sire,

“Having learned that Guy Chabot de Jarnac, being lately at Compeigne,
asserted, that whoever had said that he boasted of having criminal
intercourse with his mother-in-law, was wicked and a wretch,—I,
Sire, with your good-will and pleasure, do answer, that he has wickedly
lied, and will lie as many times as he denies having said that which I
affirm he did say; for I repeat, that he told me several times, and
boasted of it, that he had slept with his mother-in-law.

“Francois de Vivonne.”

To this cartel De Jarnac replied:—

“Sire,

“With your good will and permission, I say, that Francois de Vivonne has
lied in the imputation which he has cast upon me, and of which I spoke to
you at Compeigne. I, therefore, entreat you, Sire, most humbly, that you
be pleased to grant us a fair field, that we may fight this battle to the
death.

“Guy Chabot.”

The preparations were conducted on a scale of the greatest magnificence,
the King having intimated his intention of being present. La Chataigneraie
made sure of the victory, and invited the King and a hundred and fifty of
the principal personages of the court to sup with him in the evening,
after the battle, in a splendid tent, which he had prepared at the
extremity of the lists. De Jarnac was not so confident, though perhaps
more desperate. At noon, on the day appointed, the combatants met, and
each took the customary oath, that he bore no charms or amulets about him,
or made use of any magic, to aid him against his antagonist. They then
attacked each other, sword in hand. La Chataigneraie was a strong, robust
man, and over confident; De Jarnac was nimble, supple, and prepared for
the worst. The combat lasted for some time doubtful, until De Jarnac,
overpowered by the heavy blows of his opponent, covered his head with his
shield, and, stooping down, endeavoured to make amends by his agility for
his deficiency of strength. In this crouching posture he aimed two blows
at the left thigh of La Chataigneraie, who had left it uncovered, that the
motion of his leg might not be impeded. Each blow was successful, and,
amid the astonishment of all the spectators, and to the great regret of
the King, La Chataigneraie rolled over upon the sand. He seized his
dagger, and made a last effort to strike De Jarnac; but he was unable to
support himself, and fell powerless into the arms of the assistants. The
officers now interfered, and De Jarnac being declared the victor, fell
down upon his knees, uncovered his head, and, clasping his hands together,
exclaimed:—”O Domine, non sum dignus!” La Chataigneraie was so
mortified by the result of the encounter, that he resolutely refused to
have his wounds dressed. He tore off the bandages which the surgeons
applied, and expired two days afterwards. Ever since that time, any sly
and unforeseen attack has been called by the French a coup de Jarnac.
Henry was so grieved at the loss of his favourite, that he made the solemn
oath already alluded to, that he would never again, so long as he lived,
permit a due]. Some writers have asserted, and among others, Mezeraie,
that he issued a royal edict forbidding them. This has been doubted by
others, and, as there appears no registry of the edict in any of the
courts, it seems most probable that it was never issued. This opinion is
strengthened by the fact, that two years afterwards, the council ordered
another duel to be fought, with similar forms, but with less magnificence,
on account of the inferior rank of the combatants. It is not anywhere
stated, that Henry interfered to prevent it, notwithstanding his solemn
oath; but that, on the contrary, he encouraged it, and appointed the
Marshal de la Marque to see that it was conducted according to the rules
of chivalry. The disputants were Fendille and D’Aguerre, two gentlemen of
the household, who, quarrelling in the King’s chamber, had proceeded from
words to blows. The council, being informed of the matter, decreed that it
could only be decided in the lists. Marshal de la Marque, with the King’s
permission, appointed the city of Sedan as the place of combat. Fendille,
who was a bad swordsman, was anxious to avoid an encounter with D’Aguerre,
who was one of the most expert men of the age; but the council
authoritatively commanded that he should fight, or be degraded from all
his honours. D’Aguerre appeared in the field attended by Francois de
Vendome, Count de Chartres, while Fendille was accompanied by the Duke de
Nevers. Fendille appears to have been not only an inexpert swordsman, but
a thorough coward; one who, like Cowley, might have heaped curses on the
man,

On the very first encounter he was thrown from his horse, and, confessing
on the ground all that his victor required of him, slunk away
ignominiously from the arena.

One is tempted to look upon the death of Henry II as a judgment upon him
for his perjury in the matter of duelling. In a grand tournament
instituted on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, he broke
several lances in encounters with some of the bravest knights of the time.
Ambitious of still further renown, he would not rest satisfied until he
had also engaged the young Count de Montgomeri. He received a wound in the
eye from the lance of this antagonist, and died from its effects shortly
afterwards, in the forty-first year of his age.

In the succeeding reigns of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, the
practice of duelling increased to an alarming extent. Duels were not rare
in the other countries of Europe at the same period; but in France they
were so frequent, that historians, in speaking of that age, designate it
as “l’epoque de la fureur des duels.” The Parliament of Paris endeavoured,
as far as in its power lay, to discourage the practice. By a decree dated
the 26th of June 1559, it declared all persons who should be present at
duels, or aiding and abetting in them, to be rebels to the King,
transgressors of the law, and disturbers of the public peace.

When Henry III was assassinated at St. Cloud, in 1589, a young gentleman,
named L’isle Marivaut, who had been much beloved by him, took his death so
much to heart, that he resolved not to survive him. Not thinking suicide
an honourable death, and wishing, as he said, to die gloriously in
revenging his King and master, he publicly expressed his readiness to
fight anybody to the death who should assert that Henry’s assassination
was not a great misfortune to the community. Another youth, of a fiery
temper and tried courage, named Marolles, took him at his word, and the
day and place of the combat were forthwith appointed. When the hour had
come, and all were ready, Marolles turned to his second, and asked whether
his opponent had a casque or helmet only, or whether he wore a sallade, or
headpiece. Being answered a helmet only, he said gaily, “So much the
better; for, sir, my second, you shall repute me the wickedest man in all
the world, if I do not thrust my lance right through the the middle of his
head and kill him.” Truth to say, he did so at the very first onset, and
the unhappy L’isle Marivaut expired without a groan. Brantome, who relates
this story, adds, that the victor might have done as he pleased with the
body, cut off the head, dragged it out of the camp, or exposed it upon an
ass, but that, being a wise and very courteous gentleman, he left it to
the relatives of the deceased to be honourably buried, contenting himself
with the glory of his triumph, by which he gained no little renown and
honour among the ladies of Paris.

On the accession of Henry IV that monarch pretended to set his face
against duelling; but such was the influence of early education and the
prejudices of society upon him, that he never could find it in his heart
to punish a man for this offence. He thought it tended to foster a warlike
spirit among his people. When the chivalrous Crequi demanded his
permission to fight Don Philippe de Savoire, he is reported to have said,
“Go, and if I were not a King, I would be your second.” It is no wonder
that when such were known to be the King’s disposition, his edicts
attracted but small attention. A calculation was made by M. de Lomenie, in
the year 1607, that since the accession of Henry, in 1589, no less than
four thousand French gentlemen had lost their lives in these conflicts,
which, for the eighteen years, would have been at the rate of four or five
in a week, or eighteen per month! Sully, who reports this fact in his
Memoirs, does not throw the slightest doubt upon its exactness, and adds,
that it was chiefly owing to the facility and ill-advised good-nature of
his royal master that the bad example had so empoisoned the court, the
city, and the whole country. This wise minister devoted much of his time
and attention to the subject; for the rage, he says, was such as to cause
him a thousand pangs, and the King also. There was hardly a man moving in
what was called good society, who had not been engaged in a duel either as
principal or second; and if there were such a man, his chief desire was to
free himself from the imputation of non-duelling, by picking a quarrel
with somebody. Sully constantly wrote letters to the King, in which he
prayed him to renew the edicts against this barbarous custom, to aggravate
the punishment against offenders, and never, in any instance, to grant a
pardon, even to a person who had wounded another in a duel, much less to
any one who had taken away life. He also advised, that some sort of
tribunal, or court of honour, should be established, to take cognizance of
injurious and slanderous language, and of all such matters as usually led
to duels; and that the justice to be administered by this court should be
sufficiently prompt and severe to appease the complainant, and make the
offender repent of his aggression.

Henry, being so warmly pressed by his friend and minister, called together
an extraordinary council in the gallery of the palace of Fontainebleau, to
take the matter into consideration. When all the members were assembled,
his Majesty requested that some person conversant with the subject would
make a report to him on the origin, progress, and different forms of the
duel. Sully complacently remarks, that none of the counsllors gave the
King any great reason to felicitate them on their erudition. In fact, they
all remained silent. Sully held his peace with the rest; but he looked so
knowing, that the King turned towards him, and said:—”Great master!
by your face I conjecture that you know more of this matter than you would
have us believe. I pray you, and indeed I command, that you tell us what
you think and what you know.” The coy minister refused, as he says, out of
mere politeness to his more ignorant colleagues; but, being again pressed
by the King, he entered into a history of duelling both in ancient and
modern times. He has not preserved this history in his Memoirs; and, as
none of the ministers or counsellors present thought proper to do so, the
world is deprived of a discourse which was, no doubt, a learned and
remarkable one. The result was, that a royal edict was issued, which Sully
lost no time in transmitting to the most distant provinces, with a
distinct notification to all parties concerned that the King was in
earnest, and would exert the full rigour of the law in punishment of the
offenders. Sully himself does not inform us what were the provisions of
the new law; but Father Matthias has been more explicit, and from him we
learn, that the Marshals of France were created judges of a court of
chivalry, for the hearing of all causes wherein the honour of a noble or
gentleman was concerned, and that such as resorted to duelling should be
punished by death and confiscation of property, and that the seconds and
assistants should lose their rank, dignity, or offices, and be banished
from the court of their sovereign. [Le Pere Matthias, tome ii. livre iv.]

But so strong a hold had the education and prejudice of his age upon the
mind of the King, that though his reason condemned, his sympathies
approved the duel. Notwithstanding this threatened severity, the number of
duels did not diminish, and the wise Sully had still to lament the
prevalence of an evil which menaced society with utter disorganization. In
the succeeding reign the practice prevailed, if possible, to a still
greater extent, until the Cardinal de Richelieu, better able to grapple
with it than Sully had been, made some severe examples in the very highest
classes. Lord Herbert, the English ambassador at the court of Louis XIII
repeats, in his letters, an observation that had been previously made in
the reign of Henry IV, that it was rare to find a Frenchman moving in good
society who had not killed his man in a duel. The Abbe Millot says of this
period, that the duel madness made the most terrible ravages. Men had
actually a frenzy for combatting. Caprice and vanity, as well as the
excitement of passion, imposed the necessity of fighting. Friends were
obliged to enter into the quarrels of their friends, or be themselves
called out for their refusal, and revenge became hereditary in many
families. It was reckoned that in twenty years eight thousand letters of
pardon had been issued to persons who had killed others in single combat.
[“Elemens de l’Histoire de France, vol. iii. p. 219.]

Other writers confirm this statement. Amelot de Houssaye, in his Memoirs,
says, upon this subject, that duels were so common in the first years of
the reign of Louis XIII, that the ordinary conversation of persons when
they met in the morning was, “Do you know who fought yesterday?” and after
dinner, “Do you know who fought this morning?” The most infamous duellist
at that period was De Bouteville. It was not at all necessary to quarrel
with this assassin to be forced to fight a duel with him. When he heard
that any one was very brave, he would go to him, and say, “People tell me
that you are brave; you and I must fight together!” Every morning the most
notorious bravos and duellists used to assemble at his house, to take a
breakfast of bread and wine, and practise fencing. M. de Valencay, who was
afterwards elevated to the rank of a cardinal, ranked very high in the
estimation of De Bouteville and his gang. Hardly a day passed but what he
was engaged in some duel or other, either as principal or second; and he
once challenged De Bouteville himself, his best friend, because De
Bouteville had fought a duel without inviting him to become his second.
This quarrel was only appeased on the promise of De Bouteville that, in
his next encounter, he would not fail to avail himself of his services.
For that purpose he went out the same day, and picked a quarrel with the
Marquis des Portes. M. de Valencay, according to agreement, had the
pleasure of serving as his second, and of running through the body M. de
Cavois, the second of the Marquis des Portes, a man who had never done him
any injury, and whom he afterwards acknowledged he had never seen before.

Cardinal Richelieu devoted much attention to this lamentable state of
public morals, and seems to have concurred with his great predecessor,
Sully, that nothing but the most rigorous severity could put a stop to the
evil. The subject indeed was painfully forced upon him by his enemies. The
Marquis de Themines, to whom Richelieu, then Bishop of Lucon, had given
offence by some representations he had made to Mary of Medicis,
determined, since he could not challenge an ecclesiastic, to challenge his
brother. An opportunity was soon found. Themines, accosting the Marquis de
Richelieu, complained, in an insulting tone, that the Bishop of Lucon had
broken his faith. The Marquis resented both the manner and matter of his
speech, and readily accepted a challenge. They met in the Rue d’Angouleme,
and the unfortunate Richelieu was stabbed to the heart, and instantly
expired. From that moment the Bishop became the steady foe of the practice
of duelling. Reason and the impulse of brotherly love alike combined to
make him detest it, and when his power in France was firmly established,
he set vigorously about repressing it. In his “Testament Politique,” he
has collected his thoughts upon the subject, in the chapter entitled “Des
moyens d’arreter les Duels.” In spite of the edicts that he published, the
members of the nobility persisted in fighting upon the most trivial and
absurd pretences. At last Richelieu made a terrible example. The infamous
De Bouteville challenged and fought the Marquis de Beuoron; and, although
the duel itself was not fatal to either, its consequences were fatal to
both. High as they were, Richelieu resolved that the law should reach
them, and they were both tried, found guilty, and beheaded. Thus did
society get rid of one of the most bloodthirsty scoundrels that ever
polluted it.

In 1632 two noblemen fought a duel, in which they were both killed. The
officers of justice had notice of the breach of the law, and arrived at
the scene of combat before the friends of the parties had time to remove
the bodies. In conformity with the Cardinal’s severe code upon the
subject, the bodies were ignominiously stripped, and hanged upon a
gallows, with their heads downwards, for several hours, within sight of
all the people. [Mercure de France, vol. xiii.] This severity sobered the
frenzy of the nation for a time; but it was soon forgotten. Men’s minds
were too deeply imbued with a false notion of honour to be brought to a
right way of thinking: by such examples, however striking, Richelieu was
unable to persuade them to walk in the right path, though he could punish
them for choosing the wrong one. He had, with all his acuteness,
miscalculated the spirit of duelling. It was not death that a duellist
feared: it was shame, and the contempt of his fellows. As Addison remarked
more than eighty years afterwards, “Death was not sufficient to deter men
who made it their glory to despise it; but if every one who fought a duel
were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly diminish the number of
those imaginary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice.”
Richelieu never thought of this.

Sully says, that in his time the Germans were also much addicted to
duelling. There were three places where it was legal to fight; Witzburg,
in Franconia, and Uspach and Halle, in Swabia. Thither, of course, vast
numbers repaired, and murdered each other under sanction of the law. At an
earlier period, in Germany, it was held highly disgraceful to refuse to
fight. Any one who surrendered to his adversary for a simple wound that
did not disable him, was reputed infamous, and could neither cut his
beard, bear arms, mount on horseback, or hold any Office in the state. He
who fell in a duel was buried with great pomp and splendour.

In the year 1652, just after Louis XIV had attained his majority, a
desperate duel was fought between the Dukes de Beaufort and De Nemours,
each attended by four gentlemen. Although brothers-in-law, they had long
been enemies, and their constant dissensions had introduced much
disorganization among the troops which they severally commanded. Each had
long sought an opportunity for combat, which at last arose on a
misunderstanding relative to the places they were to occupy at the council
board. They fought with pistols, and, at the first discharge, the Duke de
Nemours was shot through the body, and almost instantly expired. Upon this
the Marquis de Villars, who seconded Nemours, challenged Hericourt, the
second of the Duke de Beaufort, a man whom he had never before seen; and
the challenge being accepted, they fought even more desperately than their
principals. This combat, being with swords, lasted longer than the first,
and was more exciting to the six remaining gentlemen who stayed to witness
it. The result was fatal to Hericourt, who fell pierced to the heart by
the sword of De Villars. Anything more savage than this can hardly be
imagined. Voltaire says such duels were frequent, and the compiler of the
“Dictionnaire d’Anecdotes” informs us, that the number of seconds was not
fixed. As many as ten, or twelve, or twenty, were not unfrequent, and they
often fought together after their principals were disabled. The highest
mark of friendship one man could manifest towards another, was to choose
him for his second; and many gentlemen were so desirous of serving in this
capacity, that they endeavoured to raise every slight misunderstanding
into a quarrel, that they might have the pleasure of being engaged in it.
The Count de Bussy Rabutin relates an instance of this in his Memoirs. He
says, that as he was one evening coming out of the theatre, a gentleman,
named Bruc, whom he had not before known, stopped him very politely, and,
drawing him aside, asked him if it was true that the Count de Thianges had
called him (Bruc) a drunkard? Bussy replied, that he really did not know,
for he saw the Count very seldom. “Oh! he is your uncle!” replied Bruc;
“and, as I cannot have satisfaction from him, because he lives so far off
in the country, I apply to you.” “I see what you are at,” replied Bussy,
“and, since you wish to put me in my uncle’s place, I answer, that whoever
asserted that he called you a drunkard, told a lie!” “My brother said so,”
replied Bruc, “and he is a child.” “Horsewhip him, then, for his
falsehood,” returned De Bussy. “I will not have my brother called a liar,”
returned Bruc, determined to quarrel with him; “so draw, and defend
yourself!” They both drew their swords in the public street, but were
separated by the spectators. They agreed, however, to fight on a future
occasion, and with all regular forms of the duello. A few days afterwards,
a gentleman, whom De Bussy had never before seen, and whom he did not
know, even by name, called upon him, and asked if he might have the
privilege of serving as his second. He added, that he neither knew him nor
Bruc, except by reputation, but, having made up his mind to be second to
one of them, he had decided upon accompanying De Bussy as the braver man
of the two. De Bussy thanked him very sincerely for his politeness, but
begged to be excused, as he had already engaged four seconds to accompany
him, and he was afraid that if he took any more, the affair would become a
battle instead of a duel.

When such quarrels as these were looked upon as mere matters of course,
the state of society must have been indeed awful. Louis XIV very early saw
the evil, and as early determined to remedy it. It was not, however, till
the year 1679, when he instituted the “Chambre Ardente,” for the trial of
the slow poisoners and pretenders to sorcery, that he published any edict
against duelling. In that year his famous edict was promulgated, in which
he reiterated and confirmed the severe enactments of his predecessors,
Henry IV and Louis XIII, and expressed his determination never to pardon
any offender. By this celebrated ordinance a supreme court of honour was
established, composed of the Marshals of France. They were bound, on
taking the office, to give to every one who brought a well-founded
complaint before them, such reparation as would satisfy the justice of the
case. Should any gentleman against whom complaint was made refuse to obey
the mandate of the court of honour, he might be punished by fine and
imprisonment; and when that was not possible, by reason of his absenting
himself from the kingdom, his estates might be confiscated till his
return.

Every man who sent a challenge, be the cause of offence what it might, was
deprived of all redress from the court of honour—suspended three
years from the exercise of any office in the state—was further
imprisoned for two years, and sentenced to pay a fine of half his yearly
income. He who accepted a challenge, was subject to the same punishment.
Any servant, or other person, who knowingly became the bearer of a
challenge, was, if found guilty, sentenced to stand in the pillory and be
publicly whipped for the first offence, and for the second, sent for three
years to the galleys.

Any person who actually fought, was to be held guilty of murder, even
though death did not ensue, and was to be punished accordingly. Persons in
the higher ranks of life were to be beheaded, and those of the middle
class hanged upon a gallows, and their bodies refused Christian burial.

At the same time that Louis published this severe edict, he exacted a
promise from his principal nobility that they would never engage in a duel
on any pretence whatever. He never swerved from his resolution to pursue
all duellists with the utmost rigour, and many were executed in various
parts of the country. A slight abatement of the evil was the consequence,
and in the course of a few years one duel was not fought where twelve had
been fought previously. A medal was struck to commemorate the
circumstance, by the express command of the King. So much had he this
object at heart, that, in his will, he particularly recommended to his
successor the care of his edict against duelling, and warned him against
any ill-judged lenity to those who disobeyed it. A singular law formerly
existed in Malta with regard to duelling. By this law it was permitted,
but only upon condition that the parties should fight in one particular
street. If they presumed to settle their quarrel elsewhere, they were held
guilty of murder, and punished accordingly. What was also very singular,
they were bound, under heavy penalties, to put up their swords when
requested to do so by a priest, a knight, or a woman. It does not appear,
however, that the ladies or the knights exercised this mild and beneficent
privilege to any great extent; the former were too often themselves the
cause of duels, and the latter sympathised too much in the wounded honour
of the combatants to attempt to separate them. The priests alone were the
great peacemakers. Brydone says, that a cross was always painted on the
wall opposite to the spot where a knight had been killed, and that in the
“street of duels” he counted about twenty of them. [Brydone’s “Tour in
Malta.” 1772.]

In England the private duel was also practised to a scandalous extent,
towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth
centuries. The judicial combat now began to be more rare, but several
instances of it are mentioned in history. One was instituted in the reign
of Elizabeth, and another so late as the time of Charles I. Sir Henry
Spelman gives an account of that which took place in Elizabeth’s reign,
which is curious, perhaps the more so when we consider that it was
perfectly legal, and that similar combats remained so till the year 1819.
A proceeding having been instituted in the Court of Common Pleas for the
recovery of certain manorial rights in the county of Kent, the defendant
offered to prove by single combat his right to retain possession. The
plaintiff accepted the challenge, and the Court having no power to stay
the proceedings, agreed to the champions who were to fight in lieu of the
principals. The Queen commanded the parties to compromise; but it being
represented to Her Majesty that they were justified by law in the course
they were pursuing, she allowed them to proceed. On the day appointed, the
Justices of the Common Pleas, and all the council engaged in the cause,
appeared as umpires of the combat, at a place in Tothill-fields, where the
lists had been prepared. The champions were ready for the encounter, and
the plaintiff and defendant were publicly called to come forward and
acknowledge them. The defendant answered to his name, and recognised his
champion with the due formalities, but the plaintiff did not appear.
Without his presence and authority the combat could not take place; and
his absence being considered an abandonment of his claim, he was declared
to be nonsuited, and barred for ever from renewing his suit before any
other tribunal whatever.

The Queen appears to have disapproved personally of this mode of settling
a disputed claim, but her judges and legal advisers made no attempt to
alter the barbarous law. The practice of private duelling excited more
indignation, from its being of every-day occurrence. In the time of James
I the English were so infected with the French madness, that Bacon, when
he was Attorney-general, lent the aid of his powerful eloquence to effect
a reformation of the evil. Informations were exhibited in the Star Chamber
against two persons, named Priest and Wright, for being engaged, as
principal and second, in a duel, on which occasion he delivered a charge
that was so highly approved of by the Lords of the Council, that they
ordered it to be printed and circulated over the country, as a thing “very
meet and worthy to be remembered and made known unto the world.” He began
by considering the nature and greatness of the mischief of duelling. “It
troubleth peace—it disfurnisheth war—it bringeth calamity upon
private men, peril upon the state, and contempt upon the law. Touching the
causes of it,” he observed, “that the first motive of it, no doubt, is a
false and erroneous imagination of honour and credit; but then, the seed
of this mischief being such, it is nourished by vain discourses and green
and unripe conceits. Hereunto may be added, that men have almost lost the
true notion and understanding of fortitude and valour. For fortitude
distinguisheth of the grounds of quarrel whether they be just; and not
only so, but whether they be worthy, and setteth a better price upon men’s
lives than to bestow them idly. Nay, it is weakness and disesteem of a
man’s self to put a man’s life upon such liedger performances. A man’s
life is not to be trifled with: it is to be offered up and sacrificed to
honourable services, public merits, good causes, and noble adventures. It
is in expense of blood as it is in expense of money. It is no liberality
to make a profusion of money upon every vain occasion, neither is it
fortitude to make effusion of blood, except the cause of it be worth.”
[See “Life and Character of Lord Bacon,” by Thomas Martin,
Barrister-at-law.]

The most remarkable event connected with duelling in this reign was that
between Lord Sanquir, a Scotch nobleman, and one Turner, a fencing-master.
In a trial of skill between them, his lordship’s eye was accidentally
thrust out by the point of Turner’s sword. Turner expressed great regret
at the circumstance, and Lord Sanquir bore his loss with as much
philosophy as he was master of, and forgave his antagonist. Three years
afterwards, Lord Sanquir was at Paris, where he was a constant visitor at
the court of Henry IV. One day, in the course of conversation, the affable
monarch inquired how he had lost his eye. Sanquir, who prided himself on
being the most expert swordsman of the age, blushed as he replied that it
was inflicted by the sword of a fencing-master. Henry, forgetting his
assumed character of an antiduellist, carelessly, and as a mere matter of
course, inquired whether the man lived? Nothing more was said, but the
query sank deep into the proud heart of the Scotch baron, who returned
shortly afterwards to England, burning for revenge. His first intent was
to challenge the fencing-master to single combat, but, on further
consideration, he deemed it inconsistent with his dignity to meet him as
an equal in fair and open fight. He therefore hired two bravos, who set
upon the fencing-master, and murdered him in his own house at Whitefriars.
The assassins were taken and executed, and a reward of one thousand pounds
offered for the apprehension of their employer. Lord Sanquir concealed
himself for several days, and then surrendered to take his trial, in the
hope (happily false) that Justice would belie her name, and be lenient to
a murderer because he was a nobleman, who, on a false point of honour, had
thought fit to take revenge into his own hands. The most powerful
intercessions were employed in his favour, but James, to his credit, was
deaf to them all. Bacon, in his character of Attorney-general, prosecuted
the prisoner to conviction; and he died the felon’s death, on the 29th of
June, 1612, on a gibbet erected in front of the gate of Westminster Hall.

With regard to the public duel, or trial by battle, demanded under the
sanction of the law, to terminate a quarrel which the ordinary course of
justice could with difficulty decide, Bacon was equally opposed to it, and
thought that in no case should it be granted. He suggested that there
should be declared a constant and settled resolution in the state to
abolish it altogether; that care should be taken that the evil be no more
cockered, nor the humour of it fed, but that all persons found guilty
should be rigorously punished by the Star Chamber, and these of eminent
quality banished from the court.

In the succeeding reign, when Donald Mackay, the first Lord Reay, accused
David Ramsay of treason, in being concerned with the Marquis of Hamilton
in a design upon the crown of Scotland, he was challenged by the latter to
make good his assertion by single combat. [See “History of the House and
Clan of Mackay.”] It had been at first the intention of the government to
try the case by the common law, but Ramsay thought he would stand a better
chance of escape by recurring to the old and almost exploded custom, but
which was still the right of every man in appeals of treason. Lord Reay
readily accepted the challenge, and both were confined in the Tower until
they found security that they would appear on a certain day, appointed by
the court, to determine the question. The management of the affair was
delegated to the Marischal Court of Westminster, and the Earl of Lindsay
was created Lord Constable of England for the purpose. Shortly before the
day appointed, Ramsay confessed in substance all that Lord Reay had laid
to his charge, upon which Charles I put a stop to the proceedings.

But in England, about this period, sterner disputes arose among men than
those mere individual matters which generate duels. The men of the
Commonwealth encouraged no practice of the kind, and the subdued
aristocracy carried their habits and prejudices elsewhere, and fought
their duels at foreign courts. Cromwell’s Parliament, however,—although
the evil at that time was not so crying,—published an order, in
1654, for the prevention of duels, and the punishment of all con cerned in
them. Charles II, on his restoration, also issued a proclamation upon the
subject. In his reign an infamous duel was fought—infamous, not only
from its own circumstances, but from the lenity that was shown to the
principal offenders.

The worthless Duke of Buckingham, having debauched the Countess of
Shrewsbury, was challenged by her husband to mortal combat, in January
1668. Charles II endeavoured to prevent the duel, not from any regard to
public morality, but from fear for the life of his favourite. He gave
commands to the Duke of Albemarle to confine Buckingham to his house, or
take some other measures to prevent him flora fighting. Albemarle
neglected the order, thinking that the King himself might prevent the
combat by some surer means. The meeting took place at Barn Elms, the
injured Shrewsbury being attended by Sir John Talbot, his relative, and
Lord Bernard Howard, son of the Earl of Arundel. Buckingham was
accompanied by two of his dependants, Captain Holmes and Sir John Jenkins.
According to the barbarous custom of the age, not only the principals, but
the seconds, engaged each other. Jenkins was pierced to the heart, and
left dead upon the field, and Sir John Talbot severely wounded in both
arms. Buckingham himself escaping with slight wounds, ran his unfortunate
antagonist through the body, and then left the field with the wretched
woman, the cause of all the mischief, who, in the dress of a page, awaited
the issue of the conflict in a neighbouring wood, holding her paramour’s
horse to avoid suspicion. Great influence was exerted to save the guilty
parties from punishment, and the master, as base as the favourite, made
little difficulty in granting a free pardon to all concerned. In a royal
proclamation issued shortly afterwards, Charles II formally pardoned the
murderers, but declared his intention never to extend, in future, any
mercy to such offenders. It would be hard after this to say who was the
most infamous, the King, the favourite, or the courtezan.

In the reign of Queen Anne, repeated complaints were made of the
prevalence of duelling. Addison, Swift, Steele, and other writers,
employed their powerful pens in reprobation of it. Steele especially, in
the “Tatler” and “Guardian,” exposed its impiety and absurdity, and
endeavoured, both by argument and by ridicule, to bring his countrymen to
a right way of thinking. [See “Spectator,” Nos. 84. 97, and 99; and
“Tatler,” Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, and 39; and “Guardian,” No. 20.] His
comedy of “The Conscious Lovers” contains an admirable exposure of the
abuse of the word honour, which led men into an error so lamentable.
Swift, writing upon the subject, remarked that he could see no harm in
rogues and fools shooting each other. Addison and Steele took higher
ground, and the latter, in the “Guardian,” summed up nearly all that could
be said upon the subject in the following impressive words:—”A
Christian and a gentleman are made inconsistent appellations of the same
person. You are not to expect eternal life if you do not forgive injuries,
and your mortal life is rendered uncomfortable if you are not ready to
commit a murder in resentment of an affront; for good sense, as well as
religion, is so utterly banished the world that men glory in their very
passions, and pursue trifles with the utmost vengeance, so little do they
know that to forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can arrive at.
A coward has often fought—a coward has often conquered, but a coward
never forgave.” Steele also published a pamphlet, in which he gave a
detailed account of the edict of Louis XIV, and the measures taken by that
monarch to cure his subjects of their murderous folly.

On the 8th of May, 1711, Sir Cholmely Deering, M.P. for the county of
Kent, was slain in a duel by Mr. Richard Thornhill, also a member of the
House of Commons. Three days afterwards, Sir Peter King brought the
subject under the notice of the Legislature, and after dwelling at
considerable length on the alarming increase of the practice, obtained
leave to bring in a bill for the prevention and punishment of duelling. It
was read a first time that day, and ordered for a second reading in the
ensuing week.

About the same time the attention of the Upper House of Parliament was
also drawn to the subject in the most painful manner. Two of its most
noted members would have fought, had it not been that Queen Anne received
notice of their intention, and exacted a pledge that they would desist;
while a few months afterwards, two other of its members lost their lives
in one of the most remarkable duels upon record. The first affair, which
happily terminated without a meeting, was between the Duke of Marlborough
and the Earl Pawlet. The latter, and fatal encounter, was between the Duke
of Hamilton and Lord Mohun.

The first arose out of a debate in the Lords upon the conduct of the Duke
of Ormond, in refusing to hazard a general engagement with the enemy, in
which Earl Pawlet remarked that nobody could doubt the courage of the Duke
of Ormond. “He was not like a certain general, who led troops to the
slaughter, to cause great numbers of officers to be knocked on the head in
a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by
disposing of their commissions.” Every one felt that the remark was aimed
at the Duke of Marlborough, but he remained silent, though evidently
suffering in mind. Soon after the House broke up, the Earl Pawlet received
a visit from Lord Mohun, who told him that the Duke of Marlborough was
anxious to come to an explanation with him relative to some expressions he
had made use of in that day’s debate, and therefore prayed him to “go and
take a little air in the country.” Earl Pawlet did not affect to
misunderstand the hint, but asked him in plain terms whether he brought a
challenge from the Duke. Lord Mohun said his message needed no
explanation, and that he (Lord Mohun) would accompany the Duke of
Marlborough. He then took his leave, and Earl Pawlet returned home and
told his lady that he was going out to fight a duel with the Duke of
Marlborough. His lady, alarmed for her lord’s safety, gave notice of his
intention to the Earl of Dartmouth, who immediately, in the Queen’s name,
sent to the Duke of Marlborough, and commanded him not to stir abroad. He
also caused Earl Pawlet’s house to be guarded by two sentinels; and having
taken these precautions, informed the Queen of the whole affair. Her
Majesty sent at once for the Duke, expressed her abhorrence of the custom
of duelling, and required his word of honour that he would proceed no
further. The Duke pledged his word accordingly, and the affair terminated.

The lamentable duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun took place
in November 1712, and sprang from the following circumstances. A lawsuit
had been pending for eleven years between these two noblemen, and they
looked upon each other in consequence with a certain degree of coldness.
They met together on the 13th of November in the chambers of Mr. Orlebar,
a Master in Chancery, when, in the course of conversation, the Duke of
Hamilton reflected upon the conduct of one of the witnesses in the cause,
saying that he was a person who had neither truth nor justice in him. Lord
Mohun, somewhat nettled at this remark, applied to a witness favourable to
his side, made answer hastily, that Mr. Whiteworth, the person alluded to,
had quite as much truth and justice in him as the Duke of Hamilton. The
Duke made no reply, and no one present imagined that he took offence at
what was said; and when he went out, of the room, he made a low and
courteous salute to the Lord Mohun. In the evening, General Macartney
called twice upon the Duke with a challenge from Lord Mohun, and failing
in seeing him, sought him a third time at a tavern, where he found him,
and delivered his message. The Duke accepted the challenge, and the day
after the morrow, which was Sunday, the 15th of November, at seven in the
morning, was appointed for the meeting.

At that hour they assembled in Hyde Park, the Duke being attended by his
relative, Colonel Hamilton, and the Lord Mohun by General Macartney. They
jumped over a ditch into a place called the Nursery, and prepared for the
combat. The Duke of Hamilton, turning to General Macartney, said, “Sir,
you are the cause of this, let the event be what it will.” Lord Mohun did
not wish that the seconds should engage, but the Duke insisted that
“Macartney should have a share in the dance.” All being ready, the two
principals took up their positions, and fought with swords so desperately
that, after a short time, they both fell down, mortally wounded. The Lord
Mohun expired upon the spot, and the Duke of Hamilton in the arms of his
servants as they were carrying him to his coach.

This unhappy termination caused the greatest excitement, not only in the
metropolis, but all over the country. The Tories, grieved at the loss of
the Duke of Hamilton, charged the fatal combat on the Whig party, whose
leader, the Duke of Marlborough, had so recently set the example of
political duels. They called Lord Mohun the bully of the Whig faction, (he
had already killed three men in duels, and been twice tried for murder),
and asserted openly, that the quarrel was concocted between him and
General Macartney to rob the country of the services of the Duke of
Hamilton by murdering him. It was also asserted, that the wound of which
the Duke died was not inflicted by Lord Mohun, but by Macartney; and every
means was used to propagate this belief. Colonel Hamilton, against whom
and Macartney the coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder,
surrendered a few days afterwards, and was examined before a privy council
sitting at the house of Lord Dartmouth. He then deposed, that seeing Lord
Mohun fall, and the Duke upon him, he ran to the Duke’s assistance, and
that he might with the more ease help him, he flung down both their
swords, and, as he was raising the Duke up, he saw Macartney, make a push
at him. Upon this deposition a royal proclamation was immediately issued,
offering a reward of 500 pounds for the apprehension of Macartney, to
which the Duchess of Hamilton afterwards added a reward of 300 pounds.

Upon the further examination of Colonel Hamilton, it was found that
reliance could not be placed on all his statements, and that he
contradicted himself in several important particulars. He was arraigned at
the Old Bailey for the murder of Lord Mohun, the whole political circles
of London being in a fever of excitement for the result. All the Tory
party prayed for his acquittal, and a Tory mob surrounded the doors and
all the avenues leading to the court of justice for many hours before the
trial began. The examination of witnesses lasted seven hours. The criminal
still persisted in accusing General Macartney of the murder of the Duke of
Hamilton, but, in other respects, say the newspapers of the day,
prevaricated foully. He was found guilty of manslaughter. This favourable
verdict was received with universal applause, “not only from the court and
all the gentlemen present, but the common people showed a mighty
satisfaction, which they testified by loud and repeated huzzas.” [“Post
Boy,” December l3th, 1712.]

As the popular delirium subsided, and men began to reason coolly upon the
subject, they disbelieved the assertions of Colonel Hamilton, that
Macartney had stabbed the Duke, although it was universally admitted that
he had been much too busy and presuming. Hamilton was shunned by all his
former companions, and his life rendered so irksome to him, that he sold
out of the Guards, and retired to private life, in which he died
heart-broken four years afterwards.

General Macartney surrendered about the same time, and was tried for
murder in the Court of King’s Bench. He was, however, found guilty of
manslaughter only.

At the opening of the session of Parliament of 1713, the Queen made
pointed allusion in her speech to the frequency of duelling, and
recommended to the Legislature to devise some speedy and effectual remedy
for it. A bill to that effect was brought forward, but thrown out on the
second reading, to the very great regret of all the sensible portion of
the community.

A famous duel was fought in 1765 between Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth. The
dispute arose at a club-dinner, and was relative to which of the two had
the largest quantity of game on his estates. Infuriated by wine and
passion, they retired instantly into an adjoining room, and fought with
swords across a table, by the feeble glimmer of a tallow-candle. Mr.
Chaworth, who was the more expert swordsman of the two, received a mortal
wound, and shortly afterwards expired. Lord Byron was brought to trial for
the murder before the House of Lords; and it appearing clearly, that the
duel was not premeditated, but fought at once, and in the heat of passion,
he was found guilty of manslaughter only, and ordered to be discharged
upon payment of his fees. This was a very bad example for the country, and
duelling of course fell into no disrepute after such a verdict.

In France, more severity was exercised. In the year 1769, the Parliament
of Grenoble took cognizance of the delinquency of the Sieur Duchelas, one
of its members, who challenged and killed in a duel a captain of the
Flemish legion. The servant of Duchelas officiated as second, and was
arraigned with his master for the murder of the captain. They were both
found guilty. Duchelas was broken alive on the wheel, and the servant
condemned to the galleys for life.

A barbarous and fiercely-contested duel was fought in November 1778,
between two foreign adventurers, at Bath, named Count Rice and the Vicomte
du Barri. Some dispute arose relative to a gambling transaction, in the
course of which Du Barri contradicted an assertion of the other, by
saying, “That is not true!” Count Rice immediately asked him if he knew
the very disagreeable meaning of the words he had employed. Du Barri said
he was perfectly well aware of their meaning, and that Rice might
interpret them just as he pleased. A challenge was immediately given and
accepted. Seconds were sent for, who, arriving with but little delay, the
whole party, though it was not long after midnight, proceeded to a place
called Claverton Down, where they remained with a surgeon until daylight.
They then prepared for the encounter, each being armed with two pistols
and a sword. The ground having been marked out by the seconds, Du Barri
fired first, and wounded his opponent in the thigh. Count Rice then
levelled his pistol, and shot Du Barri mortally in the breast. So angry
were the combatants, that they refused to desist; both stepped back a few
paces, and then rushing forward, discharged their second pistols at each
other. Neither shot took effect, and both throwing away their pistols,
prepared to finish the sanguinary struggle by the sword. They took their
places, and were advancing towards each other, when the Vicomte du Barri
suddenly staggered, grew pale, and, falling to the ground, exclaimed, “Je
vous demande ma vie.” His opponent had but just time to answer, that he
granted it, when the unfortunate Du Barri turned upon the grass, and
expired with a heavy groan. The survivor of this savage conflict was then
removed to his lodgings, where he lay for some weeks in a dangerous state.
The coroner’s jury, in the mean while, sat upon the body of Du Barri, and
disgraced themselves by returning a verdict of manslaughter only. Count
Rice, upon his recovery, was indicted for the murder notwithstanding this
verdict. On his trial he entered into a long defence of his conduct,
pleading the fairness of the duel, and its unpremeditated nature; and, at
the same time, expressing his deep regret for the unfortunate death of Du
Barri, with whom for many years he had been bound in ties of the strictest
friendship. These considerations appear to have weighed with the jury, and
this fierce duellist was again found guilty of manslaughter only, and
escaped with a merely nominal punishment.

A duel, less remarkable from its circumstances, but more so from the rank
of the parties, took place in 1789. The combatants on this occasion were
the Duke of York and Colonel Lenox, the nephew and heir of the Duke of
Richmond. The cause of offence was given by the Duke of York, who had
said, in presence of several officers of the Guards, that words had been
used to Colonel Lenox at Daubigny’s to which no gentleman ought to have
submitted. Colonel Lenox went up to the Duke on parade, and asked him
publicly whether he had made such an assertion. The Duke of York, without
answering his question, coldly ordered him to his post. When parade was
over, he took an opportunity of saying publicly in the orderly room before
Colonel Lenox, that he desired no protection from his rank as a prince and
his station as commanding officer; adding that, when he was off duty, he
wore a plain brown coat like a private gentleman, and was ready as such to
give satisfaction. Colonel Lenox desired nothing better than satisfaction;
that is to say, to run the chance of shooting the Duke through the body,
or being himself shot. He accordingly challenged his Royal Highness, and
they met on Wimbledon Common. Colonel Lenox fired first, and the ball
whizzed past the head of his opponent, so near to it as to graze his
projecting curl. The Duke refused to return the fire, and the seconds
interfering, the affair terminated.

Colonel Lenox was very shortly afterwards engaged in another duel arising
out of this. A Mr. Swift wrote a pamphlet in reference to the dispute
between him and the Duke of York, at some expressions in which he took so
much offence, as to imagine that nothing but a shot at the writer could
atone for them. They met on the Uxbridge Road, but no damage was done to
either party.

The Irish were for a long time renowned for their love of duelling. The
slightest offence which it is possible to imagine that one man could offer
to another, was sufficient to provoke a challenge. Sir Jonah Barrington
relates, in his Memoirs, that, previous to the Union, during the time of a
disputed election in Dublin, it was no unusual thing for three-and-twenty
duels to be fought in a day. Even in times of less excitement, they were
so common as to be deemed unworthy of note by the regular chroniclers of
events, except in cases where one or both of the combatants were killed.

In those days, in Ireland, it was not only the man of the military, but of
every profession, who had to work his way to eminence with the sword or
the pistol. Each political party had its regular corps of bullies, or
fire-eaters, as they were called, who qualified themselves for being the
pests of society by spending all their spare time in firing at targets.
They boasted that they could hit an opponent in any part of his body they
pleased, and made up their minds before the encounter began whether they
should kill him, disable, or disfigure him for life—lay him on a bed
of suffering for a twelve-month, or merely graze a limb.

The evil had reached an alarming height, when, in the year 1808, an
opportunity was afforded to King George III of showing in a striking
manner his detestation of the practice, and of setting an example to the
Irish that such murders were not to be committed with impunity. A dispute
arose, in the month of June 1807, between Major Campbell and Captain Boyd,
officers of the 21st regiment, stationed in Ireland, about the proper
manner of giving the word of command on parade. Hot words ensued on this
slight occasion, and the result was a challenge from Campbell to Boyd.
They retired into the mess-room shortly afterwards, and each stationed
himself at a corner, the distance obliquely being but seven paces. Here,
without friends or seconds being present, they fired at each other, and
Captain Boyd fell mortally wounded between the fourth and fifth ribs. A
surgeon who came in shortly, found him sitting in a chair, vomiting and
suffering great agony. He was led into another room, Major Campbell
following, in great distress and perturbation of mind. Boyd survived but
eighteen hours; and just before his death, said, in reply to a question
from his opponent, that the duel was not fair, and added, “You hurried me,
Campbell—you’re a bad man.”——”Good God!” replied
Campbell, “will you mention before these gentlemen, was not everything
fair? Did you not say that you were ready?” Boyd answered faintly, “Oh,
no! you know I wanted you to wait and have friends.” On being again asked
whether all was fair, the dying man faintly murmured “Yes:” but in a
minute after, he said, “You’re a bad man!” Campbell was now in great
agitation, and wringing his hands convulsively, he exclaimed, “Oh, Boyd!
you are the happiest man of the two! Do you forgive me?” Boyd replied, “I
forgive you—I feel for you, as I know you do for me.” He shortly
afterwards expired, and Major Campbell made his escape from Ireland, and
lived for some months with his family under an assumed name, in the
neighbourhood of Chelsea. He was, however, apprehended, and brought to
trial at Armagh, in August 1808. He said while in prison, that, if found
guilty of murder, he should suffer as an example to duellists in Ireland;
but he endeavoured to buoy himself up, with the hope that the jury would
only convict him of manslaughter. It was proved in evidence upon the
trial, that the duel was not fought immediately after the offence was
given, but that Major Campbell went home and drank tea with his family,
before he sought Boyd for the fatal encounter. The jury returned a verdict
of wilful murder against him, but recommended him to mercy on the ground
that the duel had been a fair one. He was condemned to die on the Monday
following, but was afterwards respited for a few days longer. In the mean
time the greatest exertions were made in his behalf. His unfortunate wife
went upon her knees before the Prince of Wales, to move him to use his
influence with the King, in favour of her unhappy husband. Everything a
fond wife and a courageous woman could do, she tried, to gain the royal
clemency; but George III was inflexible, in consequence of the
representations of the Irish Viceroy that an example was necessary. The
law was therefore allowed to take its course, and the victim of a false
spirit of honour died the death of a felon.

The most inveterate duellists of the present day are the students in the
Universities of Germany. They fight on the most frivolous pretences, and
settle with swords and pistols the schoolboy disputes which in other
countries are arranged by the more harmless medium of the fisticuffs. It
was at one time the custom among these savage youths to prefer the sword
combat, for the facility it gave them of cutting off the noses of their
opponents. To disfigure them in this manner was an object of ambition, and
the German duellists reckoned the number of these disgusting trophies
which they had borne away, with as much satisfaction as a successful
general the provinces he had reduced or the cities he had taken.

But it would be wearisome to enter into the minute detail of all the duels
of modern times. If an examination were made into the general causes which
produced them, it would be found that in every case they had been either
of the most trivial or the most unworthy nature. Parliamentary duels were
at one time very common, and amongst the names of those who have soiled a
great reputation by conforming to the practice, may be mentioned those of
Warren Hastings, Sir Philip Francis, Wilkes, Pitt, Fox, Grattan, Curran,
Tierney, and Canning. So difficult is it even for the superior mind to
free itself from the trammels with which foolish opinion has enswathed it—not
one of these celebrated persons who did not in his secret soul condemn the
folly to which he lent himself. The bonds of reason, though iron-strong,
are easily burst through; but those of folly, though lithe and frail as
the rushes by a stream, defy the stoutest heart to snap them asunder.
Colonel Thomas, an officer of the Guards, who was killed in a duel, added
the following clause to his will the night before he died:—”In the
first place, I commit my soul to Almighty God, in hope of his mercy and
pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the
unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity
of taking.” How many have been in the same state of mind as this wise,
foolish man! He knew his error, and abhorred it, but could not resist it,
for fear of the opinion of the prejudiced and unthinking. No other could
have blamed him for refusing to fight a duel.

The list of duels that have sprung from the most degrading causes might be
stretched out to an almost indefinite extent. Sterne’s father fought a
duel about a goose; and the great Raleigh about a tavern bill. [Raleigh,
at one period of his life, appeared to be an inveterate duellist, and it
was said of him that he had been engaged in more encounters of the kind
than any man of note among his contemporaries. More than one
fellow-creature he had deprived of life; but he lived long enough to be
convinced of the sinfulness of his conduct, and made a solemn vow never to
fight another duel. The following anecdote of his forbearance is well
known, but it will bear repetition:—

A dispute arose in a coffee-house between him and a young man on some
trivial point, and the latter, losing his temper, impertinently spat in
the face of the veteran. Sir Walter, instead of running him through the
body, as many would have done, or challenging him to mortal combat, coolly
took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and said, “Young man, if I
could as easily wipe from my conscience the stain of killing you, as I can
this spittle from my face, you should not live another minute.” The young
man immediately begged his pardon.] Scores of duels (many of them fatal)
have been fought from disputes at cards, or a place at a theatre, while
hundreds of challenges, given and accepted over-night, in a fit of
drunkenness, have been fought out the next morning to the death of one or
both of the antagonists.

Two of the most notorious duels of modern times had their origin in causes
no more worthy than the quarrel of a dog and the favour of a prostitute:
that between Macnamara and Montgomery arising from the former; and that
between Best and Lord Camelford, from the latter. The dog of Montgomery
attacked a dog belonging to Macnamara, and each master interfering in
behalf of his own animal, high words ensued. The result was the giving and
accepting a challenge to mortal combat. The parties met on the following
day, when Montgomery was shot dead, and his antagonist severely wounded.
This affair created a great sensation at the time, and Heaviside, the
surgeon who attended at the fatal field to render his assistance, if
necessary, was arrested as an accessory to the murder, and committed to
Newgate.

In the duel between Best and Lord Camelford, two pistols were used which
were considered to be the best in England. One of them was thought
slightly superior to the other, and it was agreed that the belligerents
should toss up a piece of money to decide the choice of weapons. Best
gained it, and, at the first discharge, Lord Camelford fell, mortally
wounded. But little sympathy was expressed for his fate; he was a
confirmed duellist, had been engaged in many meetings of the kind, and the
blood of more than one fellow-creature lay at his door. As he had sowed,
so did he reap; and the violent man met an appropriate death.

It now only remains to notice the means that have been taken to stay the
prevalence of this madness of false honour in the various countries of the
civilized world. The efforts of the governments of France and England have
already been mentioned, and their want of success is but too well known.
The same efforts have been attended with the same results elsewhere. In
despotic countries, where the will of the monarch has been strongly
expressed and vigorously supported, a diminution of the evil has for a
while resulted, but only to be increased again, when death relaxed the
iron grasp, and a successor appeared of less decided opinions upon the
subject. This was the case in Prussia under the great Frederick, of whose
aversion to duelling a popular anecdote is recorded. It is stated of him
that he permitted duelling in his army, but only upon the condition that
the combatants should fight in presence of a whole battalion of infantry,
drawn up on purpose, to see fair play. The latter received strict orders,
when one of the belligerents fell, to shoot the other immediately. It is
added, that the known determination of the King effectually put a stop to
the practice.

The Emperor Joseph II of Austria was as firm as Frederick, although the
measures he adopted were not so singular. The following letter explains
his views on the subject:—

“To GENERAL * * * * *

“MY GENERAL,

“You will immediately arrest the Count of K. and Captain W. The Count is
young, passionate, and influenced by wrong notions of birth and a false
spirit of honour. Captain W. is an old soldier, who will adjust every
dispute with the sword and pistol, and who has received the challenge of
the young Count with unbecoming warmth.

“I will suffer no duelling in my army. I despise the principles of those
who attempt to justify the practice, and who would run each other through
the body in cold blood.

“When I have officers who bravely expose themselves to every danger in
facing the enemy—who at all times exhibit courage, valour, and
resolution in attack and defence, I esteem them highly. The coolness with
which they meet death on such occasions is serviceable to their country,
and at the same time redounds to their own honour; but should there be men
amongst them who are ready to sacrifice everything to their vengeance and
hatred, I despise them. I consider such a man as no better than a Roman
gladiator.

“Order a court-martial to try the two officers. Investigate the subject of
their dispute with that impartiality which I demand from every judge; and
he that is guilty, let him be a sacrifice to his fate and the laws.

“Such a barbarous custom, which suits the age of the Tamerlanes and
Bajazets, and which has often had such melancholy effects on single
families, I will have suppressed and punished, even if it should deprive
me of one half of my officers. There are still men who know how to unite
the character of a hero with that of a good subject; and he only can be so
who respects the laws.

“JOSEPH.”

“August 1771.”

[Vide the Letters of Joseph II to distinguished Princes and Statesmen,
published for the first time in England in “The Pamphleteer” for 1821.
They were originally published in Germany a few years previously, and
throw a great light upon the character of that monarch and the events of
his reign.]

In the United States of America the code varies considerably. In one or
two of the still wild and simple States of the Far West, where no duel has
yet been fought, there is no specific law upon the subject beyond that in
the Decalogue, which says, “Thou shalt do no murder.” But duelling
everywhere follows the steps of modern civilization, and by the time the
backwoodsman is transformed into the citizen, he has imbibed the false
notions of honour which are prevalent in Europe, and around him, and is
ready, like his progenitors, to settle his differences with the pistol. In
the majority of the States the punishment for challenging, fighting, or
acting as second, is solitary imprisonment and hard labour for any period
less than a year, and disqualification for serving any public office for
twenty years. In Vermont the punishment is total disqualification for
office, deprivation of the rights of citizenship, and a fine; in fatal
cases, the same punishment as that of murderers. In Rhode Island, the
combatant, though death does not ensue, is liable to be carted to the
gallows, with a rope about his neck, and to sit in this trim for an hour,
exposed to the peltings of the mob. He may be further imprisoned for a
year, at the option of the magistrate. In Connecticut the punishment is
total disqualification for office or employ, and a fine, varying from one
hundred to a thousand dollars. The laws of Illinois require certain
officers of the state to make oath, previous to their instalment, that
they have never been, nor ever will be, concerned in a duel.
[“Encyclopedia Americana,” art. Duelling.]

Amongst the edicts against duelling promulgated at various times in
Europe, may be mentioned that of Augustus King of Poland, in 1712, which
decreed the punishment of death against principals and seconds, and minor
punishments against the bearers of a challenge. An edict was also
published at Munich, in 1773, according to which both principals and
seconds, even in duels where no one was either killed or wounded, should
be hanged, and their bodies buried at the foot of the gallows. The King of
Naples issued an ordinance against duelling in 1838, in which the
punishment of death is decreed against all concerned in a fatal duel. The
bodies of those killed, and of those who may be executed in consequence,
are to be buried in unconsecrated ground, and without any religious
ceremony; nor is any monument to be erected on the spot. The punishment
for duels in which either, or both, are wounded, and for those in which no
damage whatever is done, varies according to the case, and consists of
fine, imprisonment, loss of rank and honours, and incapacity for filling
any public situation. Bearers of challenges may also be punished with fine
and imprisonment.

It might be imagined that enactments so severe all over the civilized
world would finally eradicate a custom, the prevalence of which every wise
and good man must deplore. But the frowns of the law never yet have
taught, and never will teach, men to desist from this practice, as long as
it is felt that the lawgiver sympathises with it in his heart. The stern
judge upon the bench may say to the unfortunate wight who has been called
a liar by some unmannerly opponent, “If you challenge him, you meditate
murder, and are guilty of murder!” but the same judge, divested of his
robes of state, and mixing in the world with other men, would say, “If you
do not challenge him, if you do not run the risk of making yourself a
murderer, you will be looked upon as a mean-spirited wretch, unfit to
associate with your fellows, and deserving nothing but their scorn and
their contempt!” It is society, and not the duellist, who is to blame.
Female influence, too, which is so powerful in leading men either to good
or to evil, takes, in this case, the evil part. Mere animal bravery has,
unfortunately, such charms in the female eye, that a successful duellist
is but too often regarded as a sort of hero; and the man who refuses to
fight, though of truer courage, is thought a poltroon, who may be trampled
on. Mr. Graves, a member of the American Legislature, who, early in 1838,
killed a Mr. Cilley in a duel, truly and eloquently said, on the floor of
the House of Representatives, when lamenting the unfortunate issue of that
encounter, that society was more to blame than he was. “Public opinion,”
said the repentant orator, “is practically the paramount law of the land.
Every other law, both human and divine, ceases to be observed; yea,
withers and perishes in contact with it. It was this paramount law of this
nation, and of this House, that forced me, under the penalty of dishonour,
to subject myself to the code, which impelled me unwillingly into this
tragical affair. Upon the heads of this nation, and at the doors of this
House, rests the blood with which my unfortunate hands have been stained!”

As long as society is in this mood; as long as it thinks that the man who
refuses to resent an insult, deserved that insult, and should be scouted
accordingly, so long, it is to be feared, will duelling exist, however
severe the laws may be. Men must have redress for injuries inflicted, and
when those injuries are of such a nature that no tribunal will take
cognizance of them, the injured will take the law into their own hands,
and right themselves in the opinion of their fellows, at the hazard of
their lives. Much as the sage may affect to despise the opinion of the
world, there are few who would not rather expose their lives a hundred
times than be condemned to live on, in society, but not of it—a
by-word of reproach to all who know their history, and a mark for scorn to
point his finger at.

The only practicable means for diminishing the force of a custom which is
the disgrace of civilization, seems to be the establishment of a court of
honour, which should take cognizance of all those delicate and almost
intangible offences which yet wound so deeply. The court established by
Louis XIV might be taken as a model. No man now fights a duel when a fit
apology has been offered, and it should be the duty of this court to weigh
dispassionately the complaint of every man injured in his honour, either
by word or deed, and to force the offender to make a public apology. If he
refused the apology, he would be the breaker of a second law; an offender
against a high court, as well as against the man he had injured, and might
be punished with fine and imprisonment, the latter to last until he saw
the error of his conduct, and made the concession which the court
demanded.

If, after the establishment of this tribunal, men should be found of a
nature so bloodthirsty as not to be satisfied with its peaceful decisions,
and should resort to the old and barbarous mode of an appeal to the
pistol, some means might be found of dealing with them. To hang them as
murderers would be of no avail; for to such men death would have few
terrors. Shame alone would bring them to reason. The following code, it is
humbly suggested to all future legislators upon the subject, would, in
conjunction with the establishment of a court of honour, do much towards
eradicating this blot from society. Every man who fought a duel, even
though he did not wound his opponent, should be tried, and, upon proof of
the fact, be sentenced to have his right hand cut off. The world would
then know his true character as long as he lived. If his habits of
duelling were so inveterate, and he should learn to fire a pistol with his
left hand, he should, upon conviction of a second offence, lose that hand
also. This law, which should allow no commutation of the punishment, under
any circumstances, would lend strength and authority to the court of
honour. In the course of a few years duelling would be ranked amongst
exploded follies, and men would begin to wonder that a custom so barbarous
and so impious had ever existed amongst them.

THE LOVE OF THE MARVELLOUS AND THE DISBELIEF OF THE TRUE.

“Well, son John,” said the old woman, “and what wonderful things did you
meet with all the time you were at sea?”—”Oh! mother,” replied John,
“I saw many strange things.”—”Tell us all about them,” replied his
mother, “for I long to hear your adventures.”—”Well, then,” said
John, “as we were sailing over the Line, what do you think we saw?”—”I
can’t imagine,” replied his mother.—”Well, we saw a fish rise out of
the sea, and fly over our ship!” “Oh! John! John! what a liar you are!”
said his mother, shaking her head, and smiling incredulously. “True as
death? said John; “and we saw still more wonderful things than that.”—”Let
us hear them,” said his mother, shaking her head again; “and tell the
truth, John, if you can.”—”Believe it, or believe it not, as you
please,” replied her son; “but as we were sailing up the Red Sea, our
captain thought he should like some fish for dinner; so he told us to
throw our nets, and catch some.”—”Well,” inquired his mother, seeing
that he paused in his story. “Well,” rejoined her son, “we did throw them,
and, at the very first haul, we brought up a chariot-wheel, made all of
gold, and inlaid with diamonds!” “Lord bless us!” said his mother, “and
what did the captain say?”—”Why, he said it was one of the wheels of
Pharaoh’s chariot, that had lain in the Red Sea ever since that wicked
King was drowned, with all his host, while pursuing the Israelites.”—”Well,
well,” said his mother, lifting up her hands in admiration; “now, that’s
very possible, and I think the captain was a very sensible man. Tell me
such stories as that, and I’ll believe you; but never talk to me of such
things as flying fish! No, no, John, such stories won’t go down with me, I
can assure you!”

Such old women as the sailor’s mother, in the above well-known anecdote,
are by no means rare in the world. Every age and country has produced
them. They have been found in high places, and have sat down among the
learned of the earth. Instances must be familiar to every reader in which
the same person was willing, with greedy credulity, to swallow the most
extravagant fiction, and yet refuse credence to a philosophical fact. The
same Greeks who believed readily that Jupiter wooed Leda in the form of a
swan, denied stoutly that there were any physical causes for storms and
thunder, and treated as impious those who attempted to account for them on
true philosophical principles.

The reasons that thus lead mankind to believe the marvellously false, and
to disbelieve the marvellously true, may be easily gathered. Of all the
offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar
an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like
an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome. We all pay an involuntary
homage to antiquity—a “blind homage,” as Bacon calls it in his
“Novum Organum,” which tends greatly to the obstruction of truth. To the
great majority of mortal eyes, Time sanctifies everything that he does not
destroy. The mere fact of anything being spared by the great foe makes it
a favourite with us, who are sure to fall his victims. To call a prejudice
“time-hallowed,” is to open a way for it into hearts where it never before
penetrated. Some peculiar custom may disgrace the people amongst whom it
flourishes; yet men of a little wisdom refuse to aid in its extirpation,
merely because it is old. Thus it is with human belief, and thus it is we
bring shame upon our own intellect.

To this cause may be added another, also mentioned by Lord Bacon—a
misdirected zeal in matters of religion, which induces so many to decry a
newly-discovered truth, because the Divine records contain no allusion to
it, or because, at first sight, it appears to militate, not against
religion, but against some obscure passage which has never been fairly
interpreted. The old woman in the story could not believe that there was
such a creature as a flying-fish, because her Bible did not tell her so,
but she believed that her son had drawn up the golden and bejewelled wheel
from the Red Sea, because her Bible informed her that Pharaoh was drowned
there.

Upon a similar principle the monks of the inquisition believed that the
devil appeared visibly among men, that St. Anthony pulled his nose with a
pair of red-hot pincers, and that the relics of the saints worked
miracles; yet they would not believe Galileo, when he proved that the
earth turned round the sun.

Keppler, when he asserted the same fact, could gain no bread, and little
credence; but when he pretended to tell fortunes and cast nativities, the
whole town flocked to him, and paid him enormous fees for his falsehood.

When Roger Bacon invented the telescope and the magic-lantern, no one
believed that the unaided ingenuity of man could have done it; but when
some wiseacres asserted that the devil had appeared to him, and given him
the knowledge which he turned to such account, no one was bold enough to
assert that it was improbable. His hint that saltpetre, sulphur, and
charcoal, mixed in certain proportions, would produce effects similar to
thunder and lightning, was disregarded or disbelieved; but the legend of
the brazen head which delivered oracles, was credited for many ages.

[Godwin, in his “Lives of the Necromancers,” gives the following version
of this legend. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay entertained the project of
enclosing England with a wall, so as to render it inaccessible to any
invader. They accordingly raised the devil, as the person best able to
inform them how this was to be done. The devil advised them to make a
brazen head, with all the internal structure and organs of a human head.
The construction would cost them much time, and they must wait with
patience till the faculty of speech descended upon it. Finally, however,
it would become an oracle, and, if the question were propounded to it,
would teach them the solution of their problem. The friars spent seven
years in bringing the subject to perfection, and waited day after day in
expectation that it would utter articulate sounds. At length nature became
exhausted in them, and they lay down to sleep, having first given it
strictly in charge to a servant of theirs, clownish in nature, but of
strict fidelity, that he should awaken them the moment the image began to
speak. That period arrived. The head uttered sounds, but such as the clown
judged unworthy of notice. “Time is!” it said. No notice was taken, and a
long pause ensued. “Time was!”—a similar pause, and no notice. “Time
is passed!” The moment these words were uttered, a tremendous storm
ensued, with thunder and lightning, and the head was shivered into a
thousand pieces. Thus the experiment of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay came
to nothing.]

Solomon De Cans, who, in the time of Cardinal Richelieu, conceived the
idea of a steam-engine, was shut up in the Bastille as a madman, because
the idea of such an extraordinary instrument was too preposterous for the
wise age that believed in all the absurdities of witchcraft.

When Harvey first proved the circulation of the blood, every tongue was
let loose against him. The thing was too obviously an imposition, and an
attempt to deceive that public who believed that a king’s touch had power
to cure the scrofula. That a dead criminal’s hand, rubbed against a wen,
would cure it, was reasonable enough; but that the blood flowed through
the veins was beyond all probability.

In our own day, a similar fate awaited the beneficent discovery of Dr.
Jenner. That vaccination could abate the virulence of, or preserve from,
the smallpox, was quite incredible; none but a cheat and a quack could
assert it: but that the introduction of the vaccine matter into the human
frame could endow men with the qualities of a cow, was quite probable.
Many of the poorer people actually dreaded that their children would grow
hairy and horned as cattle, if they suffered them to be vaccinated.

The Jesuit, Father Labat, the shrewd and learned traveller in South
America, relates an experiment which he made upon the credulity of some
native Peruvians. Holding a powerful lens in his hand, and concentrating
the rays of the sun upon the naked arm of an admiring savage, he soon made
him roar with pain. All the tribe looked on, first with wonder, and then
with indignation and wonder both combined. In vain the philosopher
attempted to explain the cause of the phenomenon—in vain he offered
to convince them that there was nothing devilish in the experiment—he
was thought to be in league with the infernal gods to draw down the fire
from Heaven, and was looked upon, himself, as an awful and supernatural
being. Many attempts were made to gain possession of the lens, with the
view of destroying it, and thereby robbing the Western stranger of the
means of bringing upon them the vengeance of his deities.

Very similar was the conduct of that inquiring Brahmin, which is related
by Forbes in his Oriental Memoirs. The Brahmin had a mind better
cultivated than his fellows; he was smitten with a love for the knowledge
of Europe—read English books—pored over the pages of the
Encyclopedia, and profited by various philosophical instruments; but on
religious questions the Brahmin was firm to the faith of his caste and the
doctrine of the Metempsychosis. Lest he might sacrilegiously devour his
progenitors, he abstained from all animal food; and thinking that he ate
nothing which enjoyed life, he supported himself, like his brethren, upon
fruits and vegetables. All the knowledge that did not run counter to this
belief, he sought after with avidity, and bade fair to become the wisest
of his race. In an evil hour, his English friend and instructor exhibited
a very powerful solar microscope, by means of which he showed him that
every drop of water that he drank teemed with life—that every fruit
was like a world, covered with innumerable animalculae, each of which was
fitted by its organization for the sphere in which it moved, and had its
wants, and the capability of supplying them as completely as visible
animals millions of times its bulk. The English philosopher expected that
his Hindoo friend would be enraptured at the vast field of knowledge thus
suddenly opened out to him, but he was deceived. The Brahmin from that
time became an altered man—thoughtful, gloomy, reserved, and
discontented. He applied repeatedly to his friend that he would make him a
present of the microscope; but as it was the only one of its kind in
India, and the owner set a value upon it for other reasons, he constantly
refused the request, but offered him the loan of it for any period he
might require. But nothing short of an unconditional gift of the
instrument would satisfy the Brahmin, who became at last so importunate
that the patience of the Englishman was exhausted, and he gave it him. A
gleam of joy shot across the care-worn features of the Hindoo as he
clutched it, and bounding with an exulting leap into the garden, he seized
a large stone, and dashed the instrument into a thousand pieces. When
called upon to explain his extraordinary conduct, he said to his friend,
“Oh that I had remained in that happy state of ignorance wherein you first
found me! Yet will I confess that, as my knowledge increased, so did my
pleasure, until I beheld the last wonders of the microscope; from that
moment I have been tormented by doubt and perplexed by mystery: my mind,
overwhelmed by chaotic confusion, knows not where to rest, nor how to
extricate itself from such a maze. I am miserable, and must continue to be
so, until I enter on another stage of existence. I am a solitary
individual among fifty millions of people, all educated in the same belief
with myself—all happy in their ignorance! So may they ever remain! I
shall keep the secret within my own bosom, where it will corrode my peace
and break my rest. But I shall have some satisfaction in knowing that I
alone feel those pangs which, had I not destroyed the instrument, might
have been extensively communicated, and rendered thousands miserable!
Forgive me, my valuable friend! and oh, convey no more implements of
knowledge and destruction!”

Many a learned man may smile at the ignorance of the Peruvian and the
Hindoo, unconscious that he himself is just as ignorant and as prejudiced.
Who does not remember the outcry against the science of geology, which has
hardly yet subsided? Its professors were impiously and absurdly accused of
designing to “hurl the Creator from his throne.” They were charged with
sapping the foundations of religion, and of propping atheism by the aid of
a pretended science.

The very same principle which leads to the rejection of the true, leads to
the encouragement of the false. Thus we may account for the success which
has attended great impostors, at times when the truth, though not half so
wondrous as their impositions, has been disregarded as extravagant and
preposterous. The man who wishes to cheat the people, must needs found his
operations upon some prejudice or belief that already exists. Thus the
philosophic pretenders who told fortunes by the stars cured all diseases
by one nostrum, and preserved from evil by charms and amulets, ran with
the current of popular belief. Errors that were consecrated by time and
long familiarity, they heightened and embellished, and succeeded to their
hearts’ content; but the preacher of truth had a foundation to make as
well as a superstructure, a difficulty which did not exist for the
preacher of error. Columbus preached a new world, but was met with
distrust and incredulity; had he preached with as much zeal and
earnestness the discovery of some valley in the old one, where diamonds
hung upon the trees, or a herb grew that cured all the ills incidental to
humanity, he would have found a warm and hearty welcome—might have
sold dried cabbage leaves for his wonderful herb, and made his fortune.

In fact, it will be found in the history of every generation and race of
men, that whenever a choice of belief between the “Wondrously False” and
the “Wondrously True” is given to ignorance or prejudice, that their
choice will be fixed upon the first, for the reason that it is most akin
to their own nature. The great majority of mankind, and even of the wisest
among us, are still in the condition of the sailor’s mother—believing
and disbelieving on the same grounds that she did—protesting against
the flying fish, but cherishing the golden wheels. Thousands there are
amongst us, who, rather than pin their faith in the one fish, would
believe not only in the wheel of gold, but the chariot—not only in
the chariot, but in the horses and the driver.

POPULAR FOLLIES IN GREAT CITIES

The popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of
amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace all
his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not sneer at the
humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing mechanic, the squalid
beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley group of the idle, the
reckless, and the imitative that swarm in the alleys and broadways of a
metropolis. He who walks through a great city to find subjects for
weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at every corner to wring his heart;
but let such a man walk on his course, and enjoy his grief alone—we
are not of those who would accompany him. The miseries of us poor
earth-dwellers gain no alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely
hunt them out to be pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often
impairs his eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see
the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found
that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best
physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases.

So many pens have been employed to point out the miseries, and so many to
condemn the crimes and vices, and more serious follies of the multitude,
that our’s shall not increase the number, at least in this chapter. Our
present task shall be less ungracious, and wandering through the busy
haunts of great cities, we shall seek only for amusement, and note as we
pass a few of the harmless follies and whimsies of the poor.

And, first of all, walk where we will, we cannot help hearing from every
side a phrase repeated with delight, and received with laughter, by men
with hard hands and dirty faces—by saucy butcher lads and
errand-boys—by loose women—by hackney coachmen, cabriolet
drivers, and idle fellows who loiter at the corners of streets. Not one
utters this phrase without producing a laugh from all within hearing. It
seems applicable to every circumstance, and is the universal answer to
every question; in short, it is the favourite slang phrase of the day, a
phrase that, while its brief season of popularity lasts, throws a dash of
fun and frolicsomeness over the existence of squalid poverty and
ill-requited labour, and gives them reason to laugh as well as their more
fortunate fellows in a higher stage of society.

London is peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases, which spring up
suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole
population in a few hours, no one knows how. Many years ago the favourite
phrase (for, though but a monosyllable, it was a phrase in itself) was
Quoz. This odd word took the fancy of the multitude in an extraordinary
degree, and very soon acquired an almost boundless meaning. When vulgar
wit wished to mark its incredulity and raise a laugh at the same time,
there was no resource so sure as this popular piece of slang. When a man
was asked a favour which he did not choose to grant, he marked his sense
of the suitor’s unparalleled presumption by exclaiming Quoz! When a
mischievous urchin wished to annoy a passenger, and create mirth for his
chums, he looked him in the face, and cried out Quoz! and the exclamation
never failed in its object. When a disputant was desirous of throwing a
doubt upon the veracity of his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an
argument which he could not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a
contemptuous curl of his lip and an impatient shrug of his shoulders. The
universal monosyllable conveyed all his meaning, and not only told his
opponent that he lied, but that he erred egregiously if he thought that
any one was such a nincompoop as to believe him. Every alehouse resounded
with Quoz; every street corner was noisy with it, and every wall for miles
around was chalked with it.

But, like all other earthly things, Quoz had its season, and passed away
as suddenly as it arose, never again to be the pet and the idol of the
populace. A new claimant drove it from its place, and held undisputed sway
till, in its turn, it was hurled from its pre-eminence, and a successor
appointed in its stead.

“What a shocking bad hat!” was the phrase that was next in vogue. No
sooner had it become universal, than thousands of idle but sharp eyes were
on the watch for the passenger whose hat showed any signs, however slight,
of ancient service. Immediately the cry arose, and, like the what-whoop of
the Indians, was repeated by a hundred discordant throats. He was a wise
man who, finding himself under these circumstances “the observed of all
observers,” bore his honours meekly. He who showed symptoms of ill-feeling
at the imputations cast upon his hat, only brought upon himself redoubled
notice. The mob soon perceive whether a man is irritable, and, if of their
own class, they love to make sport of him. When such a man, and with such
a hat, passed in those days through a crowded neighbourhood, he might
think himself fortunate if his annoyances were confined to the shouts and
cries of the populace. The obnoxious hat was often snatched from his head,
and thrown into the gutter by some practical joker, and then raised,
covered with mud, upon the end of a stick, for the admiration of the
spectators, who held their sides with laughter, and exclaimed in the
pauses of their mirth, “Oh! what a shocking bad hat!… What a shocking
bad hat!” Many a nervous, poor man, whose purse could but ill spare the
outlay, doubtless purchased a new hat before the time, in order to avoid
exposure in this manner.

The origin of this singular saying, which made fun for the metropolis for
months, is not involved in the same obscurity as that which shrouds the
origin of Quoz and some others. There had been a hotly-contested election
for the borough of Southwark, and one of the candidates was an eminent
hatter. This gentleman, in canvassing the electors, adopted a somewhat
professional mode of conciliating their good-will, and of bribing them
without letting them perceive that they were bribed. Whenever he called
upon or met a voter whose hat was not of the best material, or, being so,
had seen its best days, he invariably said, “What a shocking bad hat you
have got; call at my warehouse, and you shall have a new one!” Upon the
day of election this circumstance was remembered, and his opponents made
the most of it, by inciting the crowd to keep up an incessant cry of “What
a shocking bad hat!” all the time the honourable candidate was addressing
them. From Southwark the phrase spread over all London, and reigned, for a
time, the supreme slang of the season.

Hookey Walker, derived from the chorus of a popular ballad, was also high
in favour at one time, and served, like its predecessor, Quoz, to answer
all questions. In the course of time the latter word alone became the
favourite, and was uttered with a peculiar drawl upon the first syllable,
and a sharp turn upon the last. If a lively servant girl was importuned
for a kiss by a fellow she did not care about, she cocked her little nose,
and cried “Walker!” If a dustman asked his friend for the loan of a
shilling, and his friend was either unable or unwilling to accommodate
him, the probable answer he would receive was “Walker!” If a drunken man
was reeling along the streets, and a boy pulled his coat-tails, or a man
knocked his hat over his eyes to make fun of him, the joke was always
accompanied by the same exclamation. This lasted for two or three months,
and “Walker!” walked off the stage, never more to be revived for the
entertainment of that or any future generation.

The next phrase was a most preposterous one. Who invented it, how it
arose, or where it was first heard, are alike unknown. Nothing about it is
certain, but that for months it was the slang par excellence of the
Londoners, and afforded them a vast gratification. “There he goes with his
eye out!” or “There she goes with her eye out!” as the sex of the party
alluded to might be, was in the mouth of everybody who knew the town. The
sober part of the community were as much puzzled by this unaccountable
saying as the vulgar were delighted with it. The wise thought it very
foolish, but the many thought it very funny, and the idle amused
themselves by chalking it upon walls, or scribbling it upon monuments.
But, “all that’s bright must fade,” even in slang. The people grew tired
of their hobby, and “There he goes with his eye out!” was heard no more in
its accustomed haunts.

Another very odd phrase came into repute in a brief space afterwards, in
the form of the impertinent and not universally apposite query, “Has your
mother sold her mangle?” But its popularity was not of that boisterous and
cordial kind which ensures a long continuance of favour. What tended to
impede its progress was, that it could not be well applied to the older
portions of society. It consequently ran but a brief career, and then sank
into oblivion. Its successor enjoyed a more extended fame, and laid its
foundations so deep, that years and changing fashions have not sufficed to
eradicate it. This phrase was “Flare up!” and it is, even now, a
colloquialism in common use. It took its rise in the time of the Reform
riots, when Bristol was nearly half burned by the infuriated populace. The
flames were said to have flared up in the devoted city. Whether there was
anything peculiarly captivating in the sound, or in the idea of these
words, is hard to say; but whatever was the reason, it tickled the
mob-fancy mightily, and drove all other slang out of the field before it.
Nothing was to be heard all over London but “flare up!” It answered all
questions, settled all disputes, was applied to all persons, all things,
and all circumstances, and became suddenly the most comprehensive phrase
in the English language. The man who had overstepped the bounds of decorum
in his speech was said to have flared up; he who had paid visits too
repeated to the gin-shop, and got damaged in consequence, had flared up.
To put one’s-self into a passion; to stroll out on a nocturnal frolic, and
alarm a neighbourhood, or to create a disturbance in any shape, was to
flare up. A lovers’ quarrel was a fare up; so was a boxing-match between
two blackguards in the streets, and the preachers of sedition and
revolution recommended the English nation to flare up, like the French. So
great a favourite was the word, that people loved to repeat it for its
very sound. They delighted apparently in hearing their own organs
articulate it; and labouring men, when none who could respond to the call
were within hearing, would often startle the aristocratic echoes of the
West by the well-known slang phrase of the East. Even in the dead hours of
the night, the ears of those who watched late, or who could not sleep,
were saluted with the same sound. The drunkard reeling home showed that he
was still a man and a citizen, by calling “flare up” in the pauses of his
hiccough. Drink had deprived him of the power of arranging all other
ideas; his intellect was sunk to the level of the brute’s; but he clung to
humanity by the one last link of the popular cry. While he could
vociferate that sound, he had rights as an Englishman, and would not sleep
in a gutter, like a dog! Onwards he went, disturbing quiet streets and
comfortable people by his whoop, till exhausted nature could support him
no more, and he rolled powerless into the road. When, in due time
afterwards, the policeman stumbled upon him as he lay, that guardian of
the peace turned the full light of his lantern on his face, and exclaimed,
“Here’s a poor devil who’s been flaring up!” Then came the stretcher, on
which the victim of deep potations was carried to the watchhouse, and
pitched into a dirty cell, among a score of wretches about as far gone as
himself, who saluted their new comrade by a loud, long shout of flare up!

So universal was this phrase, and so enduring seemed its popularity, that
a speculator, who knew not the evanescence of slang, established a weekly
newspaper under its name. But he was like the man who built his house upon
the sand; his foundation gave way under him, and the phrase and the
newspaper were washed into the mighty sea of the things that were. The
people grew at last weary of the monotony, and “flare up” became vulgar
even among them. Gradually it was left to little boys who did not know the
world, and in process of time sank altogether into neglect. It is now
heard no more as a piece of popular slang; but the words are still used to
signify any sudden outburst either of fire, disturbance, or ill-nature.

The next phrase that enjoyed the favour of the million was less concise,
and seems to have been originally aimed against precocious youths who gave
themselves the airs of manhood before their time. “Does your mother know
you’re out?” was the provoking query addressed to young men of more than
reasonable swagger, who smoked cigars in the streets, and wore false
whiskers to look irresistible. We have seen many a conceited fellow who
could not suffer a woman to pass him without staring her out of
countenance, reduced at once into his natural insignificance by the mere
utterance of this phrase. Apprentice lads and shopmen in their Sunday
clothes held the words in abhorrence, and looked fierce when they were
applied to them. Altogether the phrase had a very salutary effect, and in
a thousand instances showed young Vanity, that it was not half so pretty
and engaging as it thought itself. What rendered it so provoking was the
doubt it implied as to the capability of self-guidance possessed by the
individual to whom it was addressed. “Does your mother know you’re out?”
was a query of mock concern and solicitude, implying regret and concern
that one so young and inexperienced in the ways of a great city should be
allowed to wander abroad without the guidance of a parent. Hence the great
wrath of those who verged on manhood, but had not reached it, whenever
they were made the subject of it. Even older heads did not like it; and
the heir of a ducal house, and inheritor of a warrior’s name, to whom they
were applied by a cabriolet driver, who was ignorant of his rank, was so
indignant at the affront, that he summoned the offender before the
magisterial bench. The fellow had wished to impose upon his Lordship by
asking double the fare he was entitled to, and when his Lordship resisted
the demand, he was insultingly asked “if his mother knew he was out?” All
the drivers on the stand joined in the query, and his Lordship was fain to
escape their laughter by walking away with as much haste as his dignity
would allow. The man pleaded ignorance that his customer was a Lord, but
offended justice fined him for his mistake.

When this phrase had numbered its appointed days, it died away, like its
predecessors, and “Who are you?” reigned in its stead. This new favourite,
like a mushroom, seems to have sprung up in a night, or, like a frog in
Cheapside, to have come down in a sudden shower. One day it was unheard,
unknown, uninvented; the next it pervaded London; every alley resounded
with it; every highway was musical with it,

The phrase was uttered quickly, and with a sharp sound upon the first and
last words, leaving the middle one little more than an aspiration. Like
all its compeers which had been extensively popular, it was applicable to
almost every variety of circumstance. The lovers of a plain answer to a
plain question did not like it at all. Insolence made use of it to give
offence; ignorance, to avoid exposing itself; and waggery, to create
laughter. Every new comer into an alehouse tap-room was asked
unceremoniously, “Who are you?” and if he looked foolish, scratched his
head, and did not know what to reply, shouts of boisterous merriment
resounded on every side. An authoritative disputant was not unfrequently
put down, and presumption of every kind checked by the same query. When
its popularity was at its height, a gentleman, feeling the hand of a thief
in his pocket, turned suddenly round, and caught him in the act,
exclaiming, “Who are you?” The mob which gathered round applauded to the
very echo, and thought it the most capital joke they had ever heard—the
very acme of wit—the very essence of humour. Another circumstance,
of a similar kind, gave an additional fillip to the phrase, and infused
new life and vigour into it, just as it was dying away. The scene occurred
in the chief criminal court of the kingdom. A prisoner stood at the bar;
the offence with which he had been charged was clearly proved against him;
his counsel had been heard, not in his defence, but in extenuation,
insisting upon his previous good life and character, as reasons for the
lenity of the court. “And where are your witnesses?” inquired the learned
judge who presided. “Please you, my Lord, I knows the prisoner at the bar,
and a more honester feller never breathed,” said a rough voice in the
gallery. The officers of the court looked aghast, and the strangers
tittered with ill-suppressed laughter. “Who are you?” said the Judge,
looking suddenly up, but with imperturbable gravity. The court was
convulsed; the titter broke out into a laugh, and it was several minutes
before silence and decorum could be restored. When the Ushers recovered
their self-possession, they made diligent search for the profane
transgressor; but he was not to be found. Nobody knew him; nobody had seen
him. After a while the business of the court again proceeded. The next
prisoner brought up for trial augured favourably of his prospects when he
learned that the solemn lips of the representative of justice had uttered
the popular phrase as if he felt and appreciated it. There was no fear
that such a judge would use undue severity; his heart was with the people;
he understood their language and their manners, and would make allowances
for the temptations which drove them into crime. So thought many of the
prisoners, if we may infer it from the fact, that the learned judge
suddenly acquired an immense increase of popularity. The praise of his wit
was in every mouth, and “Who are you?” renewed its lease, and remained in
possession of public favour for another term in consequence.

But it must not be supposed that there were no interregni between the
dominion of one slang phrase and another. They did not arise in one long
line of unbroken succession, but shared with song the possession of
popular favour. Thus, when the people were in the mood for music, slang
advanced its claims to no purpose, and, when they were inclined for slang,
the sweet voice of music wooed them in vain. About twenty years ago London
resounded with one chorus, with the love of which everybody seemed to be
smitten. Girls and boys, young men and old, maidens and wives, and widows,
were all alike musical. There was an absolute mania for singing, and the
worst of it was, that, like good Father Philip, in the romance of “The
Monastery,” they seemed utterly unable to change their tune. “Cherry
ripe!” “Cherry ripe!” was the universal cry of all the idle in the town.
Every unmelodious voice gave utterance to it; every crazy fiddle, every
cracked flute, every wheezy pipe, every street organ was heard in the same
strain, until studious and quiet men stopped their ears in desperation, or
fled miles away into the fields or woodlands, to be at peace. This plague
lasted for a twelvemonth, until the very name of cherries became an
abomination in the land. At last the excitement wore itself away, and the
tide of favour set in a new direction. Whether it was another song or a
slang phrase, is difficult to determine at this distance of time; but
certain it is, that very shortly afterwards, people went mad upon a
dramatic subject, and nothing was to be heard of but “Tom and Jerry.”
Verbal wit had amused the multitude long enough, and they became more
practical in their recreation. Every youth on the town was seized with the
fierce desire of distinguishing himself, by knocking down the “charlies,”
being locked up all night in a watchhouse, or kicking up a row among loose
women and blackguard men in the low dens of St. Giles’s. Imitative boys
vied with their elders in similar exploits, until this unworthy passion,
for such it was, had lasted, like other follies, its appointed time, and
the town became merry after another fashion. It was next thought the
height of vulgar wit to answer all questions by placing the point of the
thumb upon the tip of the nose, and twirling the fingers in the air. If
one man wished to insult or annoy another, he had only to make use of this
cabalistic sign in his face, and his object was accomplished. At every
street corner where a group was assembled, the spectator who was curious
enough to observe their movements, would be sure to see the fingers of
some of them at their noses, either as a mark of incredulity, surprise,
refusal, or mockery, before he had watched two minutes. There is some
remnant of this absurd custom to be seen to this day; but it is thought
low, even among the vulgar.

About six years ago, London became again most preposterously musical. The
vox populi wore itself hoarse by singing the praises of “The Sea, the
Sea!” If a stranger (and a philosopher) had walked through London, and
listened to the universal chorus, he might have constructed a very pretty
theory upon the love of the English for the sea-service, and our
acknowledged superiority over all other nations upon that element. “No
wonder,” he might have said, “that this people is invincible upon the
ocean. The love of it mixes with their daily thoughts: they celebrate it
even in the market-place: their street-minstrels excite charity by it; and
high and low, young and old, male and female, chant Io paeans in its
praise. Love is not honoured in the national songs of this warlike race—Bacchus
is no god to them; they are men of sterner mould, and think only of ‘the
Sea, the Sea!’ and the means of conquering upon it.”

Such would, doubtless, have been his impression if he had taken the
evidence only of his ears. Alas! in those days for the refined ears that
were musical! great was their torture when discord, with its thousand
diversities of tone, struck up this appalling anthem—there was no
escape from it. The migratory minstrels of Savoy caught the strain, and
pealed it down the long vistas of quiet streets, till their innermost and
snuggest apartments re-echoed with the sound. Men were obliged to endure
this crying evil for full six months, wearied to desperation, and made
sea-sick on the dry land.

Several other songs sprang up in due succession afterwards, but none of
them, with the exception of one, entitled “All round my Hat,” enjoyed any
extraordinary share of favour, until an American actor introduced a vile
song called “Jim Crow.” The singer sang his verses in appropriate costume,
with grotesque gesticulations, and a sudden whirl of his body at the close
of each verse. It took the taste of the town immediately, and for months
the ears of orderly people were stunned by the senseless chorus—

Street-minstrels blackened their faces in order to give proper effect to
the verses; and fatherless urchins, who had to choose between thieving and
singing for their livelihood, took the latter course, as likely to be the
more profitable, as long as the public taste remained in that direction.
The uncouth dance, its accompaniment, might be seen in its full perfection
on market nights in any great thoroughfare; and the words of the song
might be heard, piercing above all the din and buzz of the ever-moving
multitude. He, the calm observer, who during the hey-day popularity of
this doggrel,

might have exclaimed with Shelley, whose fine lines we quote, that

The philosophic theorist we have already supposed soliloquising upon the
English character, and forming his opinion of it from their exceeding love
for a sea-song, might, if he had again dropped suddenly into London, have
formed another very plausible theory to account for our unremitting
efforts for the abolition of the Slave Trade. “Benevolent people!” he
might have said, “how unbounded are your sympathies! Your unhappy brethren
of Africa, differing from you only in the colour of their skins, are so
dear to you, and you begrudge so little the twenty millions you have paid
on their behalf, that you love to have a memento of them continually in
your sight. Jim Crow is the representative of that injured race, and as
such is the idol of your populace! See how they all sing his praises!—how
they imitate his peculiarities!—how they repeat his name in their
moments of leisure and relaxation! They even carve images of him to adorn
their hearths, that his cause and his sufferings may never be forgotten!
Oh, philanthropic England!—oh, vanguard of civilization!”

Such are a few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when no riot,
no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even current of their
thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass—the harmless follies by
which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the load of care which
presses upon their existence. The wise man, even though he smile at them,
will not altogether withhold his sympathy, and will say, “Let them enjoy
their slang phrases and their choruses if they will; and if they cannot be
happy, at least let them be merry.” To the Englishman, as well as to the
Frenchman of whom Beranger sings, there may be some comfort in so small a
thing as a song, and we may, own with him that

THE O.P. MANIA.

The acrimonious warfare carried on for a length of time by the playgoers
of London against the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, is one of the
most singular instances upon record of the small folly which will
sometimes pervade a multitude of intelligent men. Carried on at first from
mere obstinacy by a few, and afterwards for mingled obstinacy and frolic
by a greater number, it increased at last to such a height, that the sober
dwellers in the provinces held up their hands in astonishment, and
wondered that the people of London should be such fools. As much firmness
and perseverance displayed in a better cause, might have achieved
important triumphs; and we cannot but feel regret, in recording this
matter, that so much good and wholesome energy should have been thrown
away on so unworthy an object. But we will begin with the beginning, and
trace the O. P. mania from its source.

On the night of the 20th of September, 1808, the old theatre of
Covent-Garden was totally destroyed by fire. Preparations were immediately
made for the erection of a more splendid edifice, and the managers, Harris
and the celebrated John Philip Kemble, announced that the new theatre
should be without a rival in Europe. In less than three months, the
rubbish of the old building was cleared away, and the foundation-stone of
the new one laid with all due ceremony by the Duke of Sussex. With so much
celerity were the works carried on that, in nine months more, the edifice
was completed, both without and within. The opening night was announced
for the 18th of September 1809, within two days of a twelvemonth since the
destruction of the original building.

But the undertaking had proved more expensive than the Committee
anticipated. To render the pit entrance more commodious, it had been
deemed advisable to remove a low public-house that stood in the way. This
turned out a matter of no little difficulty, for the proprietor was a man
well skilled in driving a hard bargain. The more eager the Committee
showed themselves to come to terms with him for his miserable pot-house,
the more grasping he became in his demands for compensation. They were
ultimately obliged to pay him an exorbitant sum. Added to this, the
interior decorations were on the most costly scale; and Mrs. Siddons, and
other members of the Kemble family, together with the celebrated Italian
singer, Madame Catalani, had been engaged at very high salaries. As the
night of opening drew near, the Committee found that they had gone a
little beyond their means; and they issued a notice, stating that, in
consequence of the great expense they had been at in building the theatre,
and the large salaries they had agreed to pay, to secure the services of
the most eminent actors, they were under the necessity of fixing the
prices of admission at seven shillings to the boxes and four shillings to
the pit, instead of six shillings and three and sixpence, as heretofore.

This announcement created the greatest dissatisfaction. The boxes might
have borne the oppression, but the dignity of the pit was wounded. A
war-cry was raised immediately. For some weeks previous to the opening, a
continual clatter was kept up in clubs and coffee-rooms, against what was
considered a most unconstitutional aggression on the rights of play-going
man. The newspapers assiduously kept up the excitement, and represented,
day after day, to the managers the impolicy of the proposed advance. The
bitter politics of the time were disregarded, and Kemble and Covent-Garden
became as great sources of interest as Napoleon and France. Public
attention was the more fixed upon the proceedings at Covent-Garden, since
it was the only patent theatre then in existence, Drury-Lane theatre
having also been destroyed by fire in the month of February previous. But
great as was the indignation of the lovers of the drama at that time, no
one could have anticipated the extraordinary lengths to which opposition
would be carried.

First Night, September 20th.—The performances announced were the
tragedy of “Macbeth” and the afterpiece of “The Quaker.” The house was
excessively crowded (the pit especially) with persons who had gone for no
other purpose than to make a disturbance. They soon discovered another
grievance to add to the list. The whole of the lower, and three-fourths of
the upper tier of boxes, were let out for the season; so that those who
had paid at the door for a seat in the boxes, were obliged to mount to a
level with the gallery. Here they were stowed into boxes which, from their
size and shape, received the contemptuous, and not inappropriate
designation of pigeon-holes. This was considered in the light of a new
aggression upon established rights; and long before the curtain drew up,
the managers might have heard in their green-room the indignant shouts of
“Down with the pigeon-holes!”—”Old prices for ever!” Amid this din
the curtain rose, and Mr. Kemble stood forward to deliver a poetical
address in honour of the occasion. The riot now began in earnest; not a
word of the address was audible, from the stamping and groaning of the
people in the pit. This continued, almost without intermission, through
the five acts of the tragedy. Now and then, the sublime acting of Mrs.
Siddons, as “the awful woman,” hushed the noisy multitude into silence, in
spite of themselves: but it was only for a moment; the recollection of
their fancied wrongs made them ashamed of their admiration, and they
shouted and hooted again more vigorously than before. The comedy of Munden
in the afterpiece met with no better reception; not a word was listened
to, and the curtain fell amid still increasing uproar and shouts of “Old
prices!” Some magistrates, who happened to be present, zealously came to
the rescue, and appeared on the stage with copies of the Riot Act. This
ill-judged proceeding made the matter worse. The men of the pit were
exasperated by the indignity, and strained their lungs to express how
deeply they felt it. Thus remained the war till long after midnight, when
the belligerents withdrew from sheer exhaustion.

Second Night.—The crowd was not so great; all those who had gone on
the previous evening to listen to the performances, now stayed away, and
the rioters had it nearly all to themselves. With the latter, “the play
was not the thing,” and Macheath and Polly sang in “The Beggar’s Opera” in
vain. The actors and the public appeared to have changed sides—the
audience acted, and the actors listened. A new feature of this night’s
proceedings was the introduction of placards. Several were displayed from
the pit and boxes, inscribed in large letters with the words, “Old
prices.” With a view of striking terror, the constables who had been
plentifully introduced into the house, attacked the placard-bearers, and
succeeded, after several severe battles, in dragging off a few of them to
the neighbouring watch-house, in Bow Street. Confusion now became worse
and worse confounded. The pitites screamed themselves hoarse; while, to
increase the uproar, some mischievous frequenters of the upper regions
squeaked through dozens of cat-calls, till the combined noise was enough
to blister every tympanum in the house.

Third Night.—The appearance of several gentlemen in the morning at
the bar of the Bow Street police office, to answer for their riotous
conduct, had been indignantly commented upon during the day. All augured
ill for the quiet of the night. The performances announced were “Richard
the Third” and “The Poor Soldier,” but the popularity of the tragedy could
not obtain it a hearing. The pitites seemed to be drawn into closer union
by the attacks made upon them, and to act more in concert than on the
previous nights. The placards were, also, more numerous; not only the pit,
but the boxes and galleries exhibited them. Among the most conspicuous,
was one inscribed, “John Bull against John Kemble.—Who’ll win?”
Another bore “King George for ever! but no King Kemble.” A third was
levelled against Madame Catalani, whose large salary was supposed to be
one of the causes of the increased prices, and was inscribed “No
foreigners to tax us—we’re taxed enough already.” This last was a
double-barrelled one, expressing both dramatic and political discontent,
and was received with loud cheers by the pitites.

The tragedy and afterpiece were concluded full two hours before their
regular time; and the cries for Mr. Kemble became so loud, that the
manager thought proper to obey the summons. Amid all these scenes of
uproar he preserved his equanimity, and was never once betrayed into any
expression of petulance or anger. With some difficulty he obtained a
hearing. He entered into a detail of the affairs of the theatre, assuring
the audience at the same time of the solicitude of the proprietors to
accommodate themselves to the public wish. This was received with some
applause, as it was thought at first to manifest a willingness to come
back to the old prices, and the pit eagerly waited for the next sentence,
that was to confirm their hopes. That sentence was never uttered, for Mr.
Kemble, folding his arms majestically, added, in his deep tragic voice,
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I wait here to know what you want!” Immediately the
uproar was renewed, and became so tremendous and so deafening, that the
manager, seeing the uselessness of further parley, made his bow and
retired.

A gentleman then rose in the boxes and requested a hearing. He obtained it
without difficulty. He began by inveighing in severe terms against the
pretended ignorance of Mr. Kemble, in asking them so offensively what they
wanted, and concluded by exhorting the people never to cease their
opposition until they brought down the prices to their old level. The
speaker, whose name was understood to be Leigh, then requested a cheer for
the actors, to show that no disrespect was intended them. The cheer was
given immediately.

A barrister of the name of Smythe then rose to crave another hearing for
Mr. Kemble. The manager stood forth again, calm, unmoved, and severe.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “I wait here to know your wishes.” Mr.
Leigh, who took upon himself, “for that night only,” the character of
popular leader, said, the only reply he could give was one in three words,
“the old prices.” Hereat the shouts of applause again rose, till the
building rang. Still serene amid the storm, the manager endeavoured to
enter into explanations. The men of the pit would hear nothing of the
sort. They wanted entire and absolute acquiescence. Less would not satisfy
them; and, as Mr. Kemble only wished to explain, they would not hear a
word. He finally withdrew amid a noise to which Babel must have been
comparatively silent.

Fourth night.—The rioters were more obstinate than ever. The noises
were increased by the addition of whistles, bugle-horns, and watchmen’s
rattles, sniffling, snorting, and clattering from all parts of the house.
Human lungs were taxed to the uttermost, and the stamping on the floor
raised such a dust as to render all objects but dimly visible. In
placards, too, there was greater variety. The loose wits of the town had
all day been straining their ingenuity to invent new ones. Among them
were, “Come forth, O Kemble! come forth and tremble!” “Foolish John
Kemble, we’ll make you tremble!” and “No cats! no Catalani! English actors
for ever!”

Those who wish to oppose a mob successfully, should never lose their
temper. It is a proof of weakness which masses of people at once perceive,
and never fail to take advantage of. Thus, when the managers unwisely
resolved to fight the mob with their own weapons, it only increased the
opposition it was intended to allay. A dozen pugilists, commanded by a
notorious boxer of the day, were introduced into the pit, to use the
argumentum ad hominem to the rioters. Continual scuffles ensued: but the
invincible resolution of the playgoers would not allow them to quail; it
rather aroused them to renewed opposition, and a determination never to
submit or yield. It also strengthened their cause, by affording them
further ground of complaint against the managers.

The performances announced on the bills were the opera of “Love in a
Village,” and “Who wins?” but the bills had it all to themselves, for
neither actors nor public were much burthened with them. The latter,
indeed, afforded some sport. The title was too apt to the occasion to
escape notice, and shouts of “Who wins? who wins?” displaced for a time
the accustomed cry of old prices.

After the fall of the curtain, Mr. Leigh, with another gentleman, again
spoke, complaining bitterly of the introduction of the prize-fighters, and
exhorting the public never to give in. Mr. Kemble was again called
forward; but when he came, the full tide of discord ran so strongly
against him that, being totally unable to stem it, he withdrew. Each man
seemed to shout as if he had been a Stentor; and when his lungs were
wearied, took to his feet and stamped, till all the black coats in his
vicinity became grey with dust. At last the audience were tired out, and
the theatre was closed before eleven o’clock.

Fifth night.—The play was Coleman’s amusing comedy of “John Bull.”
There was no diminution of the uproar. Every note on the diapason of
discord was run through. The prize-fighters, or hitites as they were
called, mustered in considerable numbers, and the battles between them and
the pitites were fierce and many. It was now, for the first time, that the
letters O.P. came into general use as an abbreviation of the accustomed
watchword of old prices. Several placards were thus inscribed; and, as
brevity is so desirable in shouting, the mob adopted the emendation. As
usual, the manager was called for. After some delay he came forward, and
was listened to with considerable patience. He repeated, in respectful
terms, the great loss that would be occasioned to the proprietors by a
return to the old prices, and offered to submit a statement of their
accounts to the eminent lawyers, Sir Vicary Gibbs and Sir Thomas Plumer;
the eminent merchants, Sir Francis Baring and Mr. Angerstein; and Mr.
Whitmore, the Governor of the Bank of England. By their decision as to the
possibility of carrying on the theatre at the old prices, he would consent
to be governed, and he hoped the public would do the same. This reasonable
proposition was scouted immediately. Not even the high and reputable names
he had mentioned were thought to afford any guarantee for impartiality.
The pitites were too wrong-headed to abate one iota of their pretensions;
and they had been too much insulted by the prize-fighters in the manager’s
pay, to show any consideration for him, or agree to any terms he might
propose. They wanted full acquiescence, and nothing less. Thus the
conference broke off, and the manager retired amid a storm of hisses.

An Irish gentleman, named O’Reilly, then stood up in one of the boxes.
With true Irish gallantry, he came to the rescue of an ill-used lady. He
said he was disgusted at the attacks made upon Madame Catalani, the finest
singer in the world, and a lady inestimable in private life. It was
unjust, unmanly, and un-English to make the innocent suffer for the
guilty; and he hoped this blot would be no longer allowed to stain a fair
cause. As to the quarrel with the manager, he recommended them to
persevere. They were not only wronged by his increased prices, but
insulted by his boxers, and he hoped, that before they had done with him,
they would teach him a lesson he would not soon forget. The gallant
Hibernian soon became a favourite, and sat down amid loud cheers.

Sixth night.—No signs of a cessation of hostilities on the one side,
or of a return to the old prices on the other. The playgoers seemed to
grow more united as the managers grew more obstinate. The actors had by
far the best time of it; for they were spared nearly all the labour of
their parts, and merely strutted on the stage to see how matters went on,
and then strutted off again. Notwithstanding the remonstrance of Mr.
O’Reilly on the previous night, numerous placards reflecting upon Madame
Catalani were exhibited. One was inscribed with the following doggrel:—

On another was displayed, in large letters, “No compromise, old prices,
and native talent!” Some of these were stuck against the front of the
boxes, and others were hoisted from the pit on long poles. The following
specimens will suffice to show the spirit of them; wit they had none, or
humour either, although when they were successively exhibited, they
elicited roars of laughter:—

The curtain fell as early as nine o’clock, when there being loud calls for
Mr. Kemble, he stood forward. He announced that Madame Catalani, against
whom so unjustifiable a prejudice had been excited, had thrown up her
engagement rather than stand in the way of any accommodation of existing
differences. This announcement was received with great applause. Mr.
Kemble then went on to vindicate himself and co-proprietors from the
charge of despising public opinion. No assertion, he assured them, could
be more unjust. They were sincerely anxious to bring these unhappy
differences to a close, and he thought he had acted in the most fair and
reasonable manner in offering to submit the accounts to an impartial
committee, whose decision, and the grounds for it, should be fully
promulgated. This speech was received with cheering, but interrupted at
the close by some individuals, who objected to any committee of the
manager’s nomination. This led to a renewal of the uproar, and it was some
time before silence could be obtained. When, at last, he was able to make
himself heard, he gave notice, that until the decision of the committee
had been drawn up, the theatre should remain closed. Immediately every
person in the pit stood up, and a long shout of triumph resounded through
the house, which was heard at the extremity of Bow Street. As if this
result had been anticipated, a placard was at the same moment hoisted,
inscribed, “Here lies the body of NEW PRICE, an ugly brat and base born,
who expired on the 23rd of September 1809, aged six days.—Requiescat
in pace!”

Mr. Kemble then retired, and the pitites flung up their hats in the air,
or sprang over the benches, shouting and hallooing in the exuberance of
their joy; and thus ended the first act of this popular farce.

The committee ultimately chosen differed from that first named, Alderman
Sir Charles Price, Bart. and Mr. Silvester, the Recorder of London, being
substituted for Sir Francis Baring and Sir Vicary Gibbs. In a few days
they had examined the multitudinous documents of the theatre, and agreed
to a report which was published in all the newspapers, and otherwise
distributed. They stated the average profits of the six preceding years at
6 and 3/8 per cent, being only 1 and 3/8 per cent. beyond the legal
interest of money, to recompense the proprietors for all their care and
enterprise. Under the new prices they would receive 3 and 1/2 per cent.
profit; but if they returned to the old prices, they would suffer a loss
of fifteen shillings per cent. upon their capital. Under these
circumstances, they could do no other than recommend the proprietors to
continue the new prices.

This report gave no satisfaction. It certainly convinced the reasonable,
but they, unfortunately, were in a minority of one to ten. The managers,
disregarding the outcry that it excited, advertised the recommencement of
the performances for Wednesday the 4th of October following. They
endeavoured to pack the house with their friends, but the sturdy O.P. men
were on the alert, and congregated in the pit in great numbers. The play
was “The Beggar’s Opera,” but, as on former occasions, it was wholly
inaudible. The noises were systematically arranged, and the actors, seeing
how useless it was to struggle against the popular feeling, hurried over
their parts as quickly as they could, and the curtain fell shortly after
nine o’clock. Once more the manager essayed the difficult task of
convincing madness by appealing to reason. As soon as the din of the
rattles and post-horns would permit him to speak, he said, he would throw
himself on the fairness of the most enlightened metropolis in the world.
He was sure, however strongly they might feel upon the subject, they would
not be accessory to the ruin of the theatre, by insisting upon a return to
the former prices. Notwithstanding the little sop he had thrown out to
feed the vanity of this roaring Cerberus, the only answer he received was
a renewal of the noise, intermingled with shouts of “Hoax! hoax!
imposition!” Mr. O’Reilly, the gallant friend of Madame Catalani,
afterwards addressed the pit, and said no reliance could be placed on the
report of the committee. The profits of the theatre were evidently great:
they had saved the heavy salary of Madame Catalani; and by shutting out
the public from all the boxes but the pigeon-holes, they made large sums.
The first and second tiers were let at high rents to notorious courtesans,
several of whom he then saw in the house; and it was clear that the
managers preferred a large revenue from this impure source to the
reasonable profits they would receive from respectable people. Loud cheers
greeted this speech; every eye was turned towards the boxes, and the few
ladies in them immediately withdrew. At the same moment, some inveterate
petite hoisted a large placard, on which was inscribed,

Several others were introduced. One of them was a caricature likeness of
Mr. Kemble, asking, “What do you want?” with a pitite replying, “The old
prices, and no pigeon-holes!” Others merely bore the drawing of a large
key, in allusion to a notorious house in the neighbourhood, the denizens
of which were said to be great frequenters of the private boxes. These
appeared to give the managers more annoyance than all the rest, and the
prize-fighters made vigorous attacks upon the holders of them. Several
persons were, on this night, and indeed nearly every night, taken into
custody, and locked up in the watchhouse. On their appearance the
following morning, they were generally held to bail in considerable sums
to keep the peace. This proceeding greatly augmented the animosity of the
pit.

It would be useless to detail the scenes of confusion which followed night
after night. For about three weeks the war continued with unabated fury.
Its characteristics were nearly always the same. Invention was racked to
discover new noises, and it was thought a happy idea when one fellow got
into the gallery with a dustman’s bell, and rang it furiously. Dogs were
also brought into the boxes, to add their sweet voices to the general
uproar. The animals seemed to join in it con amore, and one night a large
mastiff growled and barked so loudly, as to draw down upon his exertions
three cheers from the gratified pitites.

So strong did the popular enthusiasm run in favour of the row, that
well-dressed ladies appeared in the boxes with the letters O. P. on their
bonnets. O. P. hats for the gentlemen were still more common, and some
were so zealous in the cause, as to sport waistcoats with an O embroidered
upon one flap and a P on the other. O.P. toothpicks were also in fashion;
and gentlemen and ladies carried O.P. handkerchiefs, which they waved
triumphantly whenever the row was unusually deafening. The latter
suggested the idea of O. P. flags, which were occasionally unfurled from
the gallery to the length of a dozen feet. Sometimes the first part of the
night’s performances were listened to with comparative patience, a
majority of the manager’s friends being in possession of the house. But as
soon as the half-price commenced, the row began again in all its pristine
glory. At the fall of the curtain it soon became customary to sing “God
save the King,” the whole of the O.P.’s joining in loyal chorus. Sometimes
this was followed by “Rule Britannia;” and, on two or three occasions, by
a parody of the national anthem, which excited great laughter. A verse may
not be uninteresting as a specimen.

This done, they scrambled over the benches, got up sham fights in the pit,
or danced the famous O.P. dance. The latter may as well be described here:
half a dozen, or a dozen fellows formed in a ring, and stamped alternately
with the right and left foot, calling out at regular intervals, O. P.—O.
P. with a drawling and monotonous sound. This uniformly lasted till the
lights were put out, when the rioters withdrew, generally in gangs of ten
or twenty, to defend themselves from sudden attacks on the part of the
constables.

An idea seemed about this time to break in upon them, that notwithstanding
the annoyance they caused the manager, they were aiding to fill his
coffers. This was hinted at in some of the newspapers, and the consequence
was, that many stayed away to punish him, if possible, under the silent
system. But this did not last long. The love of mischief was as great an
incentive to many of them as enmity to the new prices. Accidental
circumstances also contributed to disturb the temporary calm. At the
Westminster quarter-sessions, on the 27th of October, bills of indictment
were preferred against forty-one persons for creating a disturbance and
interrupting the performances of the theatre. The grand jury ignored
twenty-seven of the bills, left two undecided, and found true bills
against twelve. The latter exercised their right of traverse till the
ensuing sessions. The preferment of these bills had the effect of
re-awakening the subsiding excitement. Another circumstance about the same
time gave a still greater impetus to it, and furnished the rioters with a
chief, round whom they were eager to rally. Mr. Clifford, a barrister,
appeared in the pit on the night of the 31st of October, with the letters
O. P. on his hat. Being a man of some note, he was pounced upon by the
constables, and led off to Bow Street police office, where Brandon, the
box-keeper, charged him with riotous and disorderly conduct. This was
exactly what Clifford wanted. He told the presiding magistrate, a Mr.
Read, that he had purposely displayed the letters on his hat, in order
that the question of right might be determined before a competent
tribunal. He denied that he had committed any offence, and seemed to
manifest so intimate an acquaintance with the law upon the subject, that
the magistrate, convinced by his reasoning, ordered his immediate
dismissal, and stated that he had been taken into custody without the
slightest grounds. The result was made known in the theatre a few minutes
afterwards, where Mr. Clifford, on his appearance victorious, was received
with reiterated huzzas. On his leaving the house, he was greeted by a mob
of five or six hundred persons, who had congregated outside to do him
honour as he passed. From that night the riots may be said to have
recommenced, and “Clifford and O. P.” became the rallying cry of the
party. The officious box-keeper became at the same time the object of the
popular dislike, and the contempt with which the genius and fine qualities
of Mr. Kemble would not permit them to regard him, was fastened upon his
underling. So much ill-feeling was directed towards the latter, that at
this time a return to the old prices, unaccompanied by his dismissal,
would not have made the manager’s peace with the pitites.

In the course of the few succeeding weeks, during which the riots
continued with undiminished fury, O. P. medals were struck, and worn in
great numbers in the theatre. A few of the ultra-zealous even wore them in
the streets. A new fashion also came into favour for hats, waistcoats, and
handkerchiefs, on which the mark, instead of the separate letters O and P,
was a large O, with a small P in the middle of it: thus,

The managers, seeing that Mr. Clifford was so identified with the rioters,
determined to make him responsible. An action was accordingly brought
against him and other defendants in the Court of King’s Bench. On the 20th
of November, the Attorney-general moved, before Lord Ellenborough, for a
rule to show cause why a criminal information should not be filed against
Clifford for unlawfully conspiring with certain others to intimidate the
proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, and force them, to their loss and
detriment, to lower their prices of admission. The rule was granted, and
an early day fixed for the trial. In the mean time, these proceedings kept
up the acerbity of the O. P.s, and every night at the fall of the curtain,
three groans were given for John Kemble and three cheers for John Bull.

It was during this year that the national Jubilee was celebrated, in
honour of the fiftieth year of the reign of George III. When the riots had
reached their fiftieth night, the O. P.s also determined to have a
jubilee. All their previous efforts in the way of roaring, great as they
were, were this night outdone, and would have continued long after “the
wee short hour,” had not the managers wisely put the extinguisher upon
them and the lights about eleven o’clock.

Pending the criminal prosecution against himself, Mr. Clifford brought an
action for false imprisonment against Brandon. The cause was fixed for
trial in the Court of Common Pleas, on the 5th of December, before Lord
Chief-Justice Mansfield. From an early hour in the morning all the avenues
leading to the court were thronged with an eager multitude; all London was
in anxiety for the resuit. So dense was the crowd, that counsel found the
greatest difficulty in making their way into court. Mr. Sergeant Best was
retained on the part of the plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant Shepherd for the
defence. The defendant put two pleas upon the record; first, that he was
not guilty, and secondly, that he was justified. Sergeant Best, in stating
the plaintiff’s case, blamed the managers for all the disturbances that
had taken place, and contended that his client, in affixing the letters O.
P. to his hat, was not guilty of any offence. Even if he had joined in the
noises, which he had not, his so doing would not subject him to the
penalties for rioting. Several witnesses were then called to prove the
capture of Mr. Clifford, the hearing of the case before the magistrate at
Bow Street, and his ultimate dismissal. Sergeant Shepherd was heard at
great length on the other side, and contended that his client was
perfectly justified in taking into custody a man who was inciting others
to commit a breach of the peace.

The Lord Chief-Justice summed up, with an evident bias in favour of the
defendant. He said an undue apprehension of the rights of an audience had
got abroad. Even supposing the object of the rioters to be fair and legal,
they were not authorized to carry it by unfair means. In order to
constitute a riot, it was not necessary that personal violence should be
committed, and it seemed to him that the defendant had not acted in an
improper manner in giving into custody a person who, by the display of a
symbol, was encouraging others to commit a riot.

The jury retired to consider their verdict. The crowd without and within
the court awaited the result in feverish suspense. Half an hour elapsed,
when the jury returned with a verdict for the plaintiff—Damages,
five pounds. The satisfaction of the spectators was evident upon their
countenances, that of the judge expressed the contrary feeling. Turning to
the foreman of the jury, his Lordship asked upon which of the two points
referred to them, namely, the broad question, whether a riot had been
committed, and, if committed, whether the plaintiff had participated in
it, they had found their verdict?

The foreman stated, that they were all of opinion generally that the
plaintiff had been illegally arrested. This vague answer did not satisfy
his Lordship, and he repeated his question. He could not, however, obtain
a more satisfactory reply. Evidently vexed at what he deemed the
obtuseness or partiality of the jury, he turned to the bar, and said, that
a spirit of a mischievous and destructive nature was abroad, which, if not
repressed, threatened awful consequences. The country would be lost, he
said, and the government overturned, if such a spirit were encouraged; it
was impossible it could end in good. Time, the destroyer and fulfiller of
predictions, has proved that his Lordship was a false prophet. The
harmless O. P. war has been productive of no such dire results.

It was to be expected that after this triumph, the war in the pit would
rage with redoubled acrimony. A riot beginning at half-price would not
satisfy the excited feelings of the O. P.s on the night of such a victory.
Long before the curtain drew up, the house was filled with them, and
several placards were exhibited, which the constables and friends of the
managers strove, as usual, to tear into shreds. One of them, which met
this fate, was inscribed, “Success to O.P.! A British jury for ever!” It
was soon replaced by another of a similar purport. It is needless to
detail the uproar that ensued; the jumping, the fighting, the roaring, and
the howling. For nine nights more the same system was continued; but the
end was at hand.

On the 14th a grand dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor tavern, to
celebrate the victory of Mr. Clifford. “The reprobators of managerial
insolence,” as they called themselves, attended in considerable numbers;
and Mr. Clifford was voted to the chair. The cloth had been removed, and a
few speeches made, when the company were surprised by a message that their
arch-enemy himself solicited the honour of an audience. It was some time
ere they could believe that Mr. Kemble had ventured to such a place. After
some parley the manager was admitted, and a conference was held. A treaty
was ultimately signed and sealed, which put an end to the long-contested
wars of O.P., and restored peace to the drama.

All this time the disturbance proceeded at the theatre with its usual
spirit. It was now the sixty-sixth night of its continuance, and the
rioters were still untired—still determined to resist to the last.
In the midst of it a gentleman arrived from the Crown and Anchor, and
announced to the pit that Mr. Kemble had attended the dinner, and had
yielded at last to the demand of the public. He stated, that it had been
agreed upon between him and the Committee for defending the persons under
prosecution, that the boxes should remain at the advanced price; that the
pit should be reduced to three shillings and sixpence; that the private
boxes should be done away with; and that all prosecutions, on both sides,
should be immediately stayed. This announcement was received with
deafening cheers. As soon as the first burst of enthusiasm was over, the
O. P.s became anxious for a confirmation of the intelligence, and
commenced a loud call for Mr. Kemble. He had not then returned from the
Crown and Anchor; but of this the pitites were not aware, and for nearly
half an hour they kept up a most excruciating din. At length the great
actor made his appearance, in his walking dress, with his cane in hand, as
he had left the tavern. It was a long time before he could obtain silence.
He apologized in the most respectful terms for appearing before them in
such unbecoming costume, which was caused solely by his ignorance that he
should have to appear before them that night. After announcing, as well as
occasional interruptions would allow, the terms that had been agreed upon,
he added, “In order that no trace or recollection of the past differences,
which had unhappily prevailed so long, should remain, he was instructed by
the proprietors to say, that they most sincerely lamented the course that
had been pursued, and engaged that, on their parts, all legal proceedings
should forthwith be put a stop to.” The cheering which greeted this speech
was interrupted at the close by loud cries from the pit of “Dismiss
Brandon,” while one or two exclaimed, “We want old prices generally,—six
shillings for the boxes.” After an ineffectual attempt to address them
again upon this point, Mr. Kemble made respectful and repeated obeisances,
and withdrew. The noises still continued, until Munden stood forward,
leading by the hand the humbled box-keeper, contrition in his looks, and
in his hands a written apology, which he endeavoured to read. The uproar
was increased threefold by his presence, and, amid cries of “We won’t hear
him!” “Where’s his master?” he was obliged to retire. Mr. Harris, the son
of Kemble’s co-manager, afterwards endeavoured to propitiate the audience
in his favour; but it was of no avail; nothing less than his dismissal
would satisfy the offended majesty of the pit. Amid this uproar the
curtain finally fell, and the O. P. dance was danced for the last time
within the walls of Covent Garden.

On the following night it was announced that Brandon had resigned his
situation. This turned the tide of popular ill-will. The performances were
“The Wheel of Fortune,” and an afterpiece. The house was crowded to
excess; a desire to be pleased was manifest on every countenance, and when
Mr. Kemble, who took his favourite character of Penruddock, appeared upon
the stage, he was greeted with the most vehement applause. The noises
ceased entirely, and the symbols of opposition disappeared. The audience,
hushed into attention, gave vent to no sounds but those of admiration for
the genius of the actor. When, in the course of his part, he repeated the
words, “So! I am in London again!” the aptness of the expression to the
circumstances of the night, was felt by all present, and acknowledged by a
round of boisterous and thrice repeated cheering. It was a triumphant
scene for Mr. Kemble after his long annoyances. He had achieved a double
victory. He had, not only as a manager, soothed the obstinate opposition
of the play-goers, but as an actor he had forced from one of the largest
audiences he had ever beheld, approbation more cordial and unanimous than
he had ever enjoyed before. The popular favour not only turned towards
him; it embraced everybody connected with the theatre, except the poor
victim, Brandon. Most of the favourite actors were called before the
curtain to make their bow, and receive the acclamations of the pit. At the
close of the performances, a few individuals, implacable and stubborn, got
up a feeble cry of “Old prices for the boxes;” but they were quickly
silenced by the reiterated cheers of the majority, or by cries of “Turn
them out!” A placard, the last of its race, was at the same time exhibited
in the front of the pit, bearing, in large letters, the words “We are
satisfied.”

Thus ended the famous wars of O. P., which, for a period of nearly three
months, had kept the metropolis in an uproar. And after all, what was the
grand result? As if the whole proceeding had been a parody upon the more
destructive, but scarcely more sensible wars recorded in history, it was
commenced in injustice, carried on in bitterness of spirit, and ended,
like the labour of the mountain, in a mouse. The abatement of sixpence in
the price of admission to the pit, and the dismissal of an unfortunate
servant, whose only fault was too much zeal in the service of his
employers,—such were the grand victories of the O. P.’s.

THE THUGS, or PHANSIGARS.

Among the black deeds which Superstition has imposed as duties upon her
wretched votaries, none are more horrible than the practices of the
murderers, who, under the name of Thugs, or Phansigars, have so long been
the scourge of India. For ages they have pursued their dark and dreadful
calling, moulding assassination into a science, or extolling it as a
virtue, worthy only to be practised by a race favoured of Heaven. Of late
years this atrocious delusion has excited much attention, both in this
country and in India; an attention which, it is to be hoped, will speedily
lead to the uprooting of a doctrine so revolting and anti-human. Although
the British Government has extended over Hindostan for so long a period,
it does not appear that Europeans even suspected the existence of this
mysterious sect until the commencement of the present century. In the year
1807, a gang of Thugs, laden with the plunder of murdered travellers, was
accidentally discovered. The inquiries then set on foot revealed to the
astonished Government a system of iniquity unparalleled in the history of
man. Subsequent investigation extended the knowledge; and by throwing
light upon the peculiar habits of the murderers, explained the reason why
their crimes had remained so long undiscovered. In the following pages
will be found an epitome of all the information which has reached Europe
concerning them, derived principally from Dr. Sherwood’s treatise upon the
subject, published in 1816, and the still more valuable and more recent
work of Mr. Sleeman, entitled the “Ramaseeana; or, Vocabulary of the
peculiar Language of the Thugs.”

The followers of this sect are called Thugs, or T’hugs, and their
profession Thuggee. In the south of India they are called Phansigars: the
former word signifying “a deceiver;” and the latter, “a strangler.” They
are both singularly appropriate. The profession of Thuggee is hereditary,
and embraces, it is supposed, in every part of India, a body of at least
ten thousand individuals, trained to murder from their childhood; carrying
it on in secret and in silence, yet glorying in it, and holding the
practice of it higher than any earthly honour. During the winter months,
they usually follow some reputable calling, to elude suspicion; and in the
summer, they set out in gangs over all the roads of India, to plunder and
destroy. These gangs generally contain from ten to forty Thugs, and
sometimes as many as two hundred. Each strangler is provided with a noose,
to despatch the unfortunate victim, as the Thugs make it a point never to
cause death by any other means. When the gangs are very large, they divide
into smaller bodies; and each taking a different route, they arrive at the
same general place of rendezvous to divide the spoil. They sometimes
travel in the disguise of respectable traders; sometimes as sepoys or
native soldiers; and at others, as government officers. If they chance to
fall in with an unprotected wayfarer, his fate is certain. One Thug
approaches him from behind, and throws the end of a sash round his neck;
the other end is seized by a second at the same instant, crossed behind
the neck, and drawn tightly, while with their other hand the two Thugs
thrust his head forward to expedite the strangulation: a third Thug seizes
the traveller by the legs at the same moment, and he is thrown to the
ground, a corpse before he reaches it.

But solitary travellers are not the prey they are anxious to seek. A
wealthy caravan of forty or fifty individuals has not unfrequently been
destroyed by them; not one soul being permitted to escape. Indeed, there
is hardly an instance upon record of any one’s escape from their hands, so
surely are their measures taken, and so well do they calculate beforehand
all the risks and difficulties of the undertaking. Each individual of the
gang has his peculiar duty allotted to him. Upon-approaching a town, or
serai, two or three, known as the Soothaes, or “inveiglers,” are sent in
advance to ascertain if any travellers are there; to learn, if possible,
the amount of money or merchandize they carry with them, their hours of
starting in the morning, or any other particulars that may be of use. If
they can, they enter into conversation with them, pretend to be travelling
to the same place, and propose, for mutual security, to travel with them.
This intelligence is duly communicated to the remainder of the gang. The
place usually chosen for the murder is some lonely part of the road in the
vicinity of a jungle, and the time, just before dusk. At given signals,
understood only by themselves, the scouts of the party station themselves
in the front, in the rear, and on each side, to guard against surprise. A
strangler and assistant strangler, called Bhurtote and Shamshea, place
themselves, the one on the right, and the other on the left of the victim,
without exciting his suspicion. At another signal the noose is twisted,
drawn tightly by a strong hand at each extremity, and the traveller, in a
few seconds, hurried into eternity. Ten, twelve, twenty, and in some
instances, sixty persons have been thus despatched at the same moment.
Should any victim, by a rare chance, escape their hands, he falls into
those of the scouts who are stationed within hearing, who run upon him and
soon overpower him.

Their next care is to dispose of the bodies. So cautious are they to
prevent detection, that they usually break all the joints to hasten
decomposition. They then cut open the body to prevent it swelling in the
grave and causing fissures in the soil above, by which means the jackals
might be attracted to the spot, and thereby lead to discovery. When
obliged to bury the body in a frequented district, they kindle a fire over
the grave to obliterate the traces of the newly turned earth. Sometimes
the grave-diggers of the party, whose office, like that of all the rest,
is hereditary, are despatched to make the graves in the morning at some
distant spot, by which it is known the travellers will pass. The
stranglers, in the mean time, journey quietly with their victims,
conversing with them in the most friendly manner. Towards nightfall they
approach the spot selected for their murder; the signal is given, and they
fall into the graves that have been ready for them since day-break. On one
occasion, related by Captain Sleeman, a party of fifty-nine people,
consisting of fifty-two men and seven women, were thus simultaneously
strangled, and thrown into the graves prepared for them in the morning.
Some of these travellers were on horseback and well armed, but the Thugs,
who appear to have been upwards of two hundred in a gang, had provided
against all risk of failure. The only one left alive of all that numerous
party, was an infant four years old, who was afterwards initiated into all
the mysteries of Thuggee.

If they cannot find a convenient opportunity for disposing of the bodies,
they carry them for many miles, until they come to a spot secure from
intrusion, and to a soil adapted to receive them. If fear of putrefaction
admonishes them to use despatch, they set up a large screen or tent, as
other travellers do, and bury the body within the enclosure, pretending,
if inquiries are made, that their women are within. But this only happens
when they fall in with a victim unexpectedly. In murders which they have
planned previously, the finding of a place of sepulture is never left to
hazard.

Travellers who have the misfortune to lodge in the same choultry or
hostelry, as the Thugs, are often murdered during the night. It is either
against their creed to destroy a sleeper, or they find a difficulty in
placing the noose round the neck of a person in a recumbent position. When
this is the case, the slumberer is suddenly aroused by the alarm of a
snake or a scorpion. He starts to his feet, and finds the fatal sash
around his neck.—He never escapes.

In addition to these Thugs who frequent the highways, there are others,
who infest the rivers, and are called Pungoos. They do not differ in
creed, but only in a few of their customs, from their brethren on shore.
They go up and down the rivers in their own boats, pretending to be
travellers of consequence, or pilgrims, proceeding to, or returning from
Benares, Allahabad, or other sacred places. The boatmen, who are also
Thugs, are not different in appearance from the ordinary boatmen on the
river. The artifices used to entice victims on board are precisely similar
to those employed by the highway Thugs. They send out their “inveiglers”
to scrape acquaintance with travellers, and find out the direction in
which they are journeying. They always pretend to be bound for the same
place, and vaunt the superior accommodation of the boat by which they are
going. The travellers fall into the snare, are led to the Thug captain,
who very often, to allay suspicion, demurs to take them, but eventually
agrees for a moderate sum. The boat strikes off into the middle of the
stream; the victims are amused and kept in conversation for hours by their
insidious foes, until three taps are given on the deck above. This is a
signal from the Thugs on the look-out that the coast is clear. In an
instant the fatal noose is ready, and the travellers are no more. The
bodies are then thrown, warm and palpitating, into the river, from a hole
in the side of the boat, contrived expressly for the purpose.

A river Thug, who was apprehended, turned approver, to save his own life,
and gave the following evidence relative to the practices of his
fraternity:—”We embarked at Rajmahul. The travellers sat on one side
of the boat, and the Thugs on the other; while we three (himself and two
“stranglers,”) were placed in the stern, the Thugs on our left, and the
travellers on our right. Some of the Thugs, dressed as boatmen, were above
deck, and others walking along the bank of the river, and pulling the boat
by the joon, or rope, and all, at the same time, on the look-out. We came
up with a gentleman’s pinnace and two baggage-boats, and were obliged to
stop, and let them go on. The travellers seemed anxious; but were quieted
by being told that the men at the rope were tired, and must take some
refreshment. They pulled out something, and began to eat; and when the
pinnace had got on a good way, they resumed their work, and our boat
proceeded. It was now afternoon; and, when a signal was given above, that
all was clear, the five Thugs who sat opposite the travellers sprang in
upon them, and, with the aid of others, strangled them. Having done this,
they broke their spinal bones, and then threw them out of a hole made at
the side, into the river, and kept on their course; the boat being all
this time pulled along by the men on the bank.”

That such atrocities as these should have been carried on for nearly two
centuries without exciting the attention of the British Government, seems
incredible. But our wonder will be diminished when we reflect upon the
extreme caution of the Thugs, and the ordinary dangers of travelling in
India. The Thugs never murder a man near his own home, and they never
dispose of their booty near the scene of the murder. They also pay, in
common with other and less atrocious robbers, a portion of their gains to
the Polygars, or native authorities of the districts in which they reside,
to secure protection. The friends and relatives of the victims, perhaps a
thousand miles off, never surmise their fate till a period has elapsed
when all inquiry would be fruitless, or, at least, extremely difficult.
They have no clue to the assassins, and very often impute to the wild
beasts of the jungles the slaughter committed by that wilder beast, man.

There are several gradations through which every member of the fraternity
must regularly pass before he arrives at the high office of a Bhurtote, or
strangler. He is first employed as a scout—then as a sexton—then
as a Shumseea, or holder of hands, and lastly as a Bhurtote. When a man
who is not of Thug lineage, or who has not been brought up from his
infancy among them, wishes to become a strangler, he solicits the oldest,
and most pious and experienced Thug, to take him under his protection and
make him his disciple; and under his guidance he is regularly initiated.
When he has acquired sufficient experience in the lower ranks of the
profession, he applies to his Gooroo, or preceptor, to give the finishing
grace to his education, and make a strangler of him. An opportunity is
found when a solitary traveller is to be murdered; and the tyro, with his
preceptor, having seen that the proposed victim is asleep, and in safe
keeping till their return, proceed to a neighbouring field and perform
several religious ceremonies, accompanied by three or four of the oldest
and steadiest members of the gang. The Gooroo first offers up a prayer to
the goddess, saying, “Oh, Kalee! Kun-kalee! Bhud-kalee! Oh, Kalee!
Maha-kalee! Calkutta Walee! if it seems fit to thee that the traveller now
at our lodging should die by the hands of this thy slave, vouchsafe us thy
good omen.” They then sit down and watch for the good omen; and if they
receive it within half an hour, conclude that their goddess is favourable
to the claims of the new candidate for admission. If they have a bad omen,
or no omen at all, some other Thug must put the traveller to death, and
the aspirant must wait a more favourable opportunity, purifying himself in
the mean time by prayer and humiliation for the favour of the goddess. If
the good omen has been obtained, they return to their quarters; and the
Gooroo takes a handkerchief and, turning his face to the west, ties a knot
at one end of it, inserting a rupee, or other piece of silver. This knot
is called the goor khat, or holy knot, and no man who has not been
properly ordained is allowed to tie it. The aspirant receives it
reverently in his right hand from his Gooroo, and stands over the sleeping
victim, with a Shumseea, or holder of hands, at his side. The traveller is
aroused, the handkerchief is passed around his neck, and, at a signal from
the Gooroo, is drawn tight till the victim is strangled; the Shumseea
holding his hands to prevent his making any resistance. The work being now
completed, the Bhurtote (no longer an aspirant, but an admitted member)
bows down reverently in the dust before his Gooroo, and touches his feet
with both his hands, and afterwards performs the same respect to his
relatives and friends who have assembled to witness the solemn ceremony.
He then waits for another favourable omen, when he unties the knot and
takes out the rupee, which he gives to his Gooroo, with any other silver
which he may have about him. The Gooroo adds some of his own money, with
which he purchases what they call goor, or consecrated sugar, when a
solemn sacrifice is performed, to which all the gang are invited. The
relationship between the Gooroo and his disciple is accounted the most
holy that can be formed, and subsists to the latest period of life. A Thug
may betray his father, but never his Gooroo.

Dark and forbidding as is the picture already drawn, it will become still
darker and more repulsive, when we consider the motives which prompt these
men to systematic murder. Horrible as their practices would be, if love of
plunder alone incited them, it is infinitely more horrible to reflect that
the idea of duty and religion is joined to the hope of gain, in making
them the scourges of their fellows. If plunder were their sole object,
there would be reason to hope, that when a member of the brotherhood grew
rich, he would rest from his infernal toils; but the dismal superstition
which he cherishes tells him never to desist. He was sent into the world
to be a slayer of men, and he religiously works out his destiny. As
religiously he educates his children to pursue the same career, instilling
into their minds, at the earliest age, that Thuggee is the noblest
profession a man can follow, and that the dark goddess they worship will
always provide rich travellers for her zealous devotees.

The following is the wild and startling legend upon which the Thugs found
the divine origin of their sect. They believe that, in the earliest ages
of the world, a gigantic demon infested the earth, and devoured mankind as
soon as they were created. He was of so tall a stature, that when he
strode through the most unfathomable depths of the great sea, the waves,
even in tempest, could not reach above his middle. His insatiable appetite
for human flesh almost unpeopled the world, until Bhawanee, Kalee, or
Davee, the goddess of the Thugs, determined to save mankind by the
destruction of the monster. Nerving herself for the encounter, she armed
herself with an immense sword; and, meeting with the demon, she ran him
through the body. His blood flowed in torrents as he fell dead at her
feet; but from every drop there sprang up another monster, as rapacious
and as terrible as the first. Again the goddess upraised her massive
sword, and hewed down the hellish brood by hundreds; but the more she
slew, the more numerous they became. Every drop of their blood generated a
demon; and, although the goddess endeavoured to lap up the blood ere it
sprang into life, they increased upon her so rapidly, that the labour of
killing became too great for endurance. The perspiration rolled down her
arms in large drops, and she was compelled to think of some other mode of
exterminating them. In this emergency, she created two men out of the
perspiration of her body, to whom she confided the holy task of delivering
the earth from the monsters. To each of the men she gave a handkerchief,
and showed them how to kill without shedding blood. From her they learned
to tie the fatal noose; and they became, under her tuition, such expert
stranglers, that, in a very short space of time, the race of demons became
extinct.

When there were no more to slay, the two men sought the great goddess, in
order to return the handkerchiefs. The grateful Bhawanee desired that they
would retain them, as memorials of their heroic deeds; and in order that
they might never lose the dexterity that they had acquired in using them,
she commanded that, from thenceforward, they should strangle men. These
were the two first Thugs, and from them the whole race have descended. To
the early Thugs the goddess was more direct in her favours, than she has
been to their successors. At first, she undertook to bury the bodies of
all the men they slew and plundered, upon the condition that they should
never look back to see what she was doing. The command was religiously
observed for many ages, and the Thugs relied with implicit faith upon the
promise of Bhawanee; but as men became more corrupt, the ungovernable
curiosity of a young Thug offended the goddess, and led to the withdrawal
of a portion of her favour. This youth, burning with a desire to see how
she made her graves, looked back, and beheld her in the act, not of
burying, but of devouring, the body of a man just strangled. Half of the
still palpitating remains was dangling over her lips. She was so highly
displeased that she condemned the Thugs, from that time forward, to bury
their victims themselves. Another account states that the goddess was
merely tossing the body in the air; and that, being naked, her anger was
aggravated by the gaze of mortal eyes upon her charms. Before taking a
final leave of her devotees, she presented them with one of her teeth for
a pickaxe, one of her ribs for a knife, and the hem of her garment for a
noose. She has not since appeared to human eyes.

The original tooth having been lost in the lapse of ages, new pickaxes
have been constructed, with great care and many ceremonies, by each
considerable gang of Thugs, to be used in making the graves of strangled
travellers. The pickaxe is looked upon with the utmost veneration by the
tribe. A short account of the process of making it, and the rites
performed, may be interesting, as showing still further their gloomy
superstition. In the first place, it is necessary to fix upon a lucky day.
The chief Thug then instructs a smith to forge the holy instrument: no
other eye is permitted to see the operation. The smith must engage in no
other occupation until it is completed, and the chief Thug never quits his
side during the process. When the instrument is formed, it becomes
necessary to consecrate it to the especial service of Bhawnee. Another
lucky day is chosen for this ceremony, care being had in the mean time
that the shadow of no earthly thing fall upon the pickaxe, as its efficacy
would be for ever destroyed. A learned Thug then sits down; and turning
his face to the west, receives the pickaxe in a brass dish. After
muttering some incantation, he throws it into a pit already prepared for
it, where it is washed in clear water. It is then taken out, and washed
again three times; the first time in sugar and water, the second in sour
milk, and the third in spirits. It is then dried, and marked from the head
to the point with seven red spots. This is the first part of the ceremony:
the second consists in its purification by fire. The pickaxe is again
placed upon the brass dish, along with a cocoa-nut, some sugar, cloves,
white sandal-wood, and other articles. A fire of the mango tree, mixed
with dried cow-dung, is then kindled; and the officiating Thug, taking the
pickaxe with both hands, passes it seven times through the flames.

It now remains to be ascertained whether the goddess is favourable to her
followers. For this purpose, the cocoa-nut is taken from the dish and
placed upon the ground. The officiating Thug, turning to the spectators,
and holding the axe uplifted, asks, “Shall I strike?” Assent being given,
he strikes the nut with the but-end of the axe, exclaiming, “All hail!
mighty Davee! great mother of us all!” The spectators respond, “All hail!
mighty Davee! and prosper thy children, the Thugs!”

If the nut is severed at the first blow, the goddess is favourable; if
not, she is unpropitious: all their labour is thrown away, and the
ceremony must be repeated upon some more fitting occasion. But if the sign
be favourable, the axe is tied carefully in a white cloth and turned
towards the west, all the spectators prostrating themselves before it. It
is then buried in the earth, with its point turned in the direction the
gang wishes to take on their approaching expedition. If the goddess
desires to warn them that they will be unsuccessful, or that they have not
chosen the right track, the Thugs believe that the point of the axe will
veer round, and point to the better way. During an expedition, it is
entrusted to the most prudent and exemplary Thug of the party: it is his
care to hold it fast. If by any chance he should let it fall,
consternation spreads through the gang: the goddess is thought to be
offended; the enterprise is at once abandoned; and the Thugs return home
in humiliation and sorrow, to sacrifice to their gloomy deity, and win
back her estranged favour. So great is the reverence in which they hold
the sacred axe, that a Thug will never break an oath that he has taken
upon it. He fears that, should he perjure himself, his neck would be so
twisted by the offended Bhawanee as to make his face turn to his back; and
that, in the course of a few days, he would expire in the most
excruciating agonies.

The Thugs are diligent observers of signs and omens. No expedition is ever
undertaken before the auspices are solemnly taken. Upon this subject
Captain Sleeman says, “Even the most sensible approvers, who have been
with me for many years, as well Hindoos as Mussulmans, believe that their
good or ill success depended upon the skill with which the omens were
discovered and interpreted, and the strictness with which they were
observed and obeyed. One of the old Sindouse stock told me, in presence of
twelve others, from Hydrabad, Behar, the Dooah, Oude, Rajpootana, and
Bundelcund, that, had they not attended to these omens, they never could
have thrived as they did. In ordinary cases of murder, other men seldom
escaped punishment, while they and their families had, for ten
generations, thrived, although they had murdered hundreds of people.
‘This,’ said the Thug,’ could never have been the case had we not attended
to omens, and had not omens been intended for us. There were always signs
around us to guide us to rich booty, and warn us of danger, had we been
always wise enough to discern them and religious enough to attend to
them.’ Every Thug present concurred with him from his soul.”

A Thug, of polished manners and great eloquence, being asked by a native
gentleman, in the presence of Captain Sleeman, whether he never felt
compunction in murdering innocent people, replied with a smile that he did
not. “Does any man,” said he, “feel compunction in following his trade?
and are not all our trades assigned us by Providence?” He was then asked
how many people he had killed with his own hands in the course of his
life? “I have killed none,” was the reply. “What! and have you not been
describing a number of murders in which you were concerned?” “True; but do
you suppose that I committed them? Is any man killed by man’s killing? Is
it not the hand of God that kills, and are we not the mere instruments in
the hands of God?”

Upon another occasion, Sahib, an approver, being asked if he had never
felt any pity or compunction at murdering old men or young children, or
persons with whom he had sat and conversed, and who had told him,
perchance, of their private affairs—their hopes and their fears,
their wives and their little ones? replied unhesitatingly that he never
did. From the time that the omens were favourable, the Thugs considered
all the travellers they met as victims thrown into their hands by their
divinity to be killed. The Thugs were the mere instruments in the hands of
Bhawanee to destroy them. “If we did not kill them,” said Sahib, “the
goddess would never again be propitious to us, and we and our families
would be involved in misery and want. If we see or hear a bad omen, it is
the order of the goddess not to kill the travellers we are in pursuit of,
and we dare not disobey.”

As soon as an expedition has been planned, the goddess is consulted. On
the day chosen for starting, which is never during the unlucky months of
July, September, and December, nor on a Wednesday or Thursday; the chief
Thug of the party fills a brass jug with water, which he carries in his
right hand by his side. With his left, he holds upon his breast the sacred
pickaxe, wrapped carefully in a white cloth, along with five knots of
turmeric, two copper, and one silver coin. He then moves slowly on,
followed by the whole of the gang, to some field or retired place, where
halting, with his countenance turned in the direction they wish to pursue,
he lifts up his eyes to heaven, saying, “Great goddess! universal mother!
if this, our meditated expedition, be fitting in thy sight, vouchsafe to
help us, and give us the signs of thy approbation.” All the Thugs present
solemnly repeat the prayer after their leader, and wait in silence for the
omen. If within half an hour they see Pilhaoo, or good omen on the left,
it signifies that the goddess has taken them by the left hand to lead them
on; if they see the Thibaoo, or omen on the right, it signifies that she
has taken them by the right hand also. The leader then places the brazen
pitcher on the ground and sits down beside it, with his face turned in the
same direction for seven hours, during which time his followers make all
the necessary preparations for the journey. If, during this interval, no
unfavourable signs are observed, the expedition advances slowly, until it
arrives at the bank of the nearest stream, when they all sit down and eat
of the goor, or consecrated sugar. Any evil omens that are perceived after
this ceremony may be averted by sacrifices; but any evil omens before,
would at once put an end to the expedition.

Among the evil omens are the following:—If the brazen pitcher drops
from the hand of the Jemadar or leader, it threatens great evil either to
him or to the gang—sometimes to both. If they meet a funeral
procession, a blind man, a lame man, an oil-vender, a carpenter, a potter,
or a dancing-master, the expedition will be dangerous. In like manner it
is unlucky to sneeze, to meet a woman with an empty pail, a couple of
jackals, or a hare. The crossing of their path by the latter is considered
peculiarly inauspicious. Its cry at night on the left is sometimes a good
omen, but if they hear it on the right it is very bad; a warning sent to
them from Bhawanee that there is danger if they kill. Should they
disregard this warning, and led on by the hope of gain, strangle any
traveller, they would either find no booty on him, or such booty as would
eventually lead to the ruin and dispersion of the gang. Bhawanee would be
wroth with her children; and causing them to perish in the jungle, would
send the hares to drink water out of their skulls.

The good omens are quite as numerous as the evil. It promises a fortunate
expedition, if, on the first day, they pass through a village where there
is a fair. It is also deemed fortunate, if they hear wailing for the dead
in any village but their own. To meet a woman with a pitcher full of water
upon her head, bodes a prosperous journey and a safe return. The omen is
still more favourable if she be in a state of pregnancy. It is said of the
Thugs of the Jumaldehee and Lodaha tribes, that they always make the
youngest Thug of the party kick the body of the first person they
strangle, five times on the back, thinking that it will bring them good
luck. This practice, however, is not general. If they hear an ass bray on
the left at the commencement of an expedition, and an another soon
afterwards on the right, they believe that they shall be supereminently
successful, that they shall strangle a multitude of travellers, and find
great booty.

After every murder a solemn sacrifice, called the Tuponee, is performed by
all the gang. The goor, or consecrated sugar, is placed upon a large cloth
or blanket, which is spread upon the grass. Beside it is deposited the
sacred pickaxe, and a piece of silver for an offering. The Jemadar, or
chief of the party, together with all the oldest and most prudent Thugs,
take their places upon the cloth, and turn their faces to the west. Those
inferior Thugs who cannot find room upon the privileged cloth, sit round
as close to it as possible. A pit is then dug, into which the Jemadar
pours a small quantity of the goor, praying at the same time that the
goddess will always reward her followers with abundant spoils. All the
Thugs repeat the prayer after him. He then sprinkles water upon the
pickaxe, and puts a little of the goor upon the head of every one who has
obtained a seat beside him on the cloth. A short pause ensues, when the
signal for strangling is given, as if a murder were actually about to be
committed, and each Thug eats his goor in solemn silence. So powerful is
the impression made upon their imagination by this ceremony, that it
almost drives them frantic with enthusiasm. Captain Sleeman relates, that
when he reproached a Thug for his share in a murder of great atrocity, and
asked him whether he never felt pity; the man replied, “We all feel pity
sometimes; but the goor of the Tuponee changes our nature; it would change
the nature of a horse. Let any man once taste of that goor, and he will be
a Thug, though he know all the trades and have all the wealth in the
world. I never was in want of food; my mother’s family was opulent, and
her relations high in office. I have been high in office myself, and
became so great a favourite wherever I went that I was sure of promotion;
yet I was always miserable when absent from my gang, and obliged to return
to Thuggee. My father made me taste of that fatal goor, when I was yet a
mere boy; and if I were to live a thousand years I should never be able to
follow any other trade.”

The possession of wealth, station in society, and the esteem of his
fellows, could not keep this man from murder. From his extraordinary
confession we may judge of the extreme difficulty of exterminating a sect
who are impelled to their horrid practises, not only by the motives of
self-interest which govern mankind in general, but by a fanaticism which
fills up the measure of their whole existence. Even severity seems thrown
away upon the followers of this brutalizing creed. To them, punishment is
no example; they have no sympathy for a brother Thug who is hung at his
own door by the British Government, nor have they any dread of his fate.
Their invariable idea is, that their goddess only suffers those Thugs to
fall into the hands of the law, who have contravened the peculiar
observances of Thuggee, and who have neglected the omens she sent them for
their guidance.

To their neglect of the warnings of the goddess they attribute all the
reverses which have of late years befallen their sect. It is expressly
forbidden, in the creed of the old Thugs, to murder women or cripples. The
modern Thugs have become unscrupulous upon this point, murdering women,
and even children, with unrelenting barbarity. Captain Sleeman reports
several conversations upon this subject, which he held at different times
with Thugs, who had been taken prisoners, or who had turned approvers. One
of them, named Zolfukar, said, in reply to the Captain, who accused him of
murdering women, “Yes, and was not the greater part of Feringeea’s and my
gang seized, after we had murdered the two women and the little girl, at
Manora, in 1830? and were we not ourselves both seized soon after? How
could we survive things like that? Our ancestors never did such things.”
Lalmun, another Thug, in reply to a similar question, said, “Most of our
misfortunes have come upon us for the murder of women. We all knew that
they would come upon us some day, for this and other great sins. We were
often admonished, but we did not take warning; and we deserve our fates.”
In speaking of the supposed protection which their goddess had extended to
them in former times, Zolfukar said:—”Ah! we had some regard for
religion then! We have lost it since. All kinds of men have been made
Thugs, and all classes of people murdered, without distinction; and little
attention has been paid to omens. How, after this, could we think to
escape? * * * * Davee never forsook us till we neglected her!”

It might be imagined that men who spoke in this manner of the anger of the
goddess, and who, even in custody, showed so much veneration for their
unhappy calling, would hesitate before they turned informers, and laid
bare the secrets and exposed the haunts of their fellows:—among the
more civilized ruffians of Europe, we often find the one chivalrous trait
of character, which makes them scorn a reward that must be earned by the
blood of their accomplices: but in India there is no honour among thieves.
When the approvers are asked, if they, who still believe in the power of
the terrible goddess Davee, are not afraid to incur her displeasure by
informing of their fellows, they reply, that Davee has done her worst in
abandoning them. She can inflict no severer punishment, and therefore
gives herself no further concern about her degenerate children. This
cowardly doctrine is, however, of advantage to the Government that seeks
to put an end to the sect, and has thrown a light upon their practices,
which could never have been obtained from other sources.

Another branch of the Thug abomination has more recently been discovered
by the indefatigable Captain Sleeman. The followers of this sect are
called MEGPUNNAS, and they murder travellers, not to rob them of their
wealth, but of their children, whom they afterwards sell into slavery.
They entertain the same religious opinions as the Thugs, and have carried
on their hideous practices, and entertained their dismal superstition, for
about a dozen years with impunity. The report of Captain Sleeman states,
that the crime prevails almost exclusively in Delhi and the native
principalities, or Rajpootana of Ulwar and Bhurtpore; and that it first
spread extensively after the siege of Bhurtpore in 1826.

The original Thugs never or rarely travel with their wives; but the
Megpunnas invariably take their families with them, the women and children
being used to inveigle the victims. Poor travellers are always chosen by
the Megpunnas as the objects of their murderous traffic. The females and
children are sent on in advance to make acquaintance with emigrants or
beggars on the road, travelling with their families, whom they entice to
pass the night in some secluded place, where they are afterwards set upon
by the men, and strangled. The women take care of the children. Such of
them as are beautiful are sold at a high price to the brothels of Delhi,
or other large cities; while the boys and ill-favoured girls are sold for
servants at a more moderate rate. These murders are perpetrated perhaps
five hundred miles from the homes of the unfortunate victims; and the
children thus obtained, deprived of all their relatives, are never
inquired after. Even should any of their kin be alive, they are too far
off and too poor to institute inquiries. One of the members, on being
questioned, said the Megpunnas made more money than the other Thugs; it
was more profitable to kill poor people for the sake of their children,
than rich people for their wealth. Megpunnaism is supposed by its votaries
to be, like Thuggee, under the immediate protection of the great goddess
Davee, or Kalee, whose favour is to be obtained before the commencement of
every expedition, and whose omens, whether of good or evil, are to be
diligently sought on all occasions. The first apostle to whom she
communicated her commands for the formation of the new sect, and the rules
and ordinances by which it was to be guided, was called Kheama Jemadar. He
was considered so holy a man, that the Thugs and Megpunnas considered it
an extreme felicity to gaze upon and touch him. At the moment of his
arrest by the British authorities, a fire was raging in the village, and
the inhabitants gathered round him and implored him to intercede with his
god, that the flames might be extinguished. The Megpunna, says the
tradition, stretched forth his hand to heaven, prayed, and the fire ceased
immediately.

There now only remain to be considered the exertions that have been made
to remove from the face of India this purulent and disgusting sore. From
the year 1807 until 1826, the proceedings against Thuggee were not carried
on with any extraordinary degree of vigour; but, in the latter year, the
Government seems to have begun to act upon a settled determination to
destroy it altogether. From 1826 to 1855, both included, there were
committed to prison, in the various Presidencies, 1562 persons accused of
this crime. Of these, 328 were hanged; 999 transported; 77 imprisoned for
life; 71 imprisoned for shorter periods; 21 held to bail; and only 21
acquitted. Of the remainder, 31 died in prison, before they were brought
to trial, 11 escaped, and 49 turned approvers.

One Feringeea, a Thug leader of great notoriety, was delivered up to
justice in the year 1830, in consequence of the reward of five hundred
rupees offered for his apprehension by the Government. He was brought
before Captain Sleeman, at Sangir, in the December of that year, and
offered, if his life were spared, to give such information as would lead
to the arrest of several extensive gangs which had carried on their
murderous practices undetected for several years. He mentioned the place
of rendezvous, for the following February, of some well organized gangs,
who were to proceed into Guzerat and Candeish. Captain Sleeman appeared to
doubt his information; but accompanied the Thug to a mango grove, two
stages from Sangir, on the road to Seronage. They reached this place in
the evening, and in the morning Feringeea pointed out three places in
which he and his gang had, at different intervals, buried the bodies of
three parties of travellers whom they had murdered. The sward had grown
over all the spots, and not the slightest traces were to be seen that it
had ever been disturbed. Under the sod of Captain Sleeman’s tent were
found the bodies of the first party, consisting of a pundit and his six
attendants, murdered in 1818. Another party of five, murdered in 1824,
were under the ground at the place where the Captain’s horses had been
tied up for the night; and four Brahmin carriers of the Ganges water, with
a woman, were buried under his sleeping tent. Before the ground was moved,
Captain Sleeman expressed some doubts; but Feringeea, after looking at the
position of some neighbouring trees, said he would risk his life on the
accuracy of his remembrance. The workmen dug five feet without discovering
the bodies; but they were at length found a little beyond that depth,
exactly as the Thug had described them. With this proof of his knowledge
of the haunts of his brethren, Feringeea was promised his liberty and
pardon if he would aid in bringing to justice the many large gangs to
which he had belonged, and which were still prowling over the country.
They were arrested in the February following, at the place of rendezvous
pointed out by the approver, and most of them condemned and executed.

So far we learn from Captain Sleeman, who only brought down his tables to
the close of the year 1835. A writer in the “Foreign Quarterly Review”
furnishes an additional list of 241 persons, committed to prison in 1836,
for being concerned in the murder and robbery of 474 individuals. Of these
criminals, 91 were sentenced to death, and 22 to imprisonment for life,
leaving 306, who were sentenced to transportation for life, or shorter
periods of imprisonment, or who turned approvers, or died in gaol. Not one
of the whole number was acquitted.

Great as is this amount of criminals who have been brought to justice, it
is to be feared that many years must elapse before an evil so deeply
rooted can be eradicated. The difficulty is increased by the utter
hopelessness of reformation as regards the survivors. Their numbers are
still calculated to amount to ten thousand persons, who, taking the
average of three murders annually for each, as calculated by Captain
Sleeman and other writers, murder every year thirty thousand of their
fellow creatures. This average is said to be under the mark; but even if
we were to take it at only a third of this calculation, what a frightful
list it would be! When religion teaches men to go astray, they go far
astray indeed!

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS

By Charles Mackay

Author Of

“The Thames And Its Tributaries,” “The Hope Of The World,” Etc.

VOL I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. 1841.

NATIONAL DELUSIONS.