February 1st, and by that time the South Sea Company had
seen their way to mend their hand and submit more attractive proposals.
Then the Bank, not to be out-rivalled, soon made a second proposal as
well. The House took the rival propositions into consideration. Walpole
was the chief advocate of the Bank. No doubt he had come to the
reasonable conclusion that if there could be any hope of success for such
a scheme, it would be found in the Bank of England rather than in the
South Sea Company. Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made
himself the champion of the Company, and assured the House that its
propositions were of far greater advantage to the country than those of
the Bank. Under his persuasive influence the House agreed to accept the
tender, as we may call it, of the Company, and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Craggs, and others, were ordered to prepare and
bring in a bill to give legislative sanction to the scheme.

[Sidenote: 1720--The Bill passed]

The bill passed the Commons and went up to the House of Lords. To the
credit of the Peers it has to be said that they received it more
doubtfully, and were slower to admit the certainty of its blessings than
the members of the representative chamber had been. Lord North and Gray
condemned it as not only making way for, but {191} actually countenancing
and authorizing "the fraudulent and pernicious practice of
stock-jobbing." The Duke of Wharton declared that "the artificial and
prodigious rise of the South Sea stock was a dangerous bait, which might
decoy many unwary people to their ruin, and allure them, by a false
prospect of gain, to part with what they had got by their labor and
industry to purchase imaginary riches." Lord Cowper said that the bill,
"like the Trojan horse, was ushered in and received with great pomp and
acclamations of joy, but was contrived for treachery and destruction."
Lord Sunderland, however, spoke warmly in favor of the bill, and
contended that "they who countenanced the scheme of the South Sea Company
had nothing in their view but the easing the nation of part of that heavy
load of debt it labored under;" and argued that the scheme would enable
the directors of the Company at once to pay off the debt, and to secure
large dividends to their share-holders. The Lords decided on admitting
the South Sea Company's Trojan horse. Eighty-three votes were in favor
of the bill, and only seventeen against it. T